m  MEMOMAM 
tabbi   Isadore  Isaacson 


MOUNT    SINAI     CONGREGATION 

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QHje  Cemple  Hiforarp 


IN    MEMORY   OF 


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THE  MOSAIC  LAW 
IN   MODERN   LIFE 


THE       WORKS       OF 

Cleland  Boyd  McAfee 

The  Mosaic  Law  in 
Modern  Life 

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In    Modern    Life 


CLELAND  BOYD  McAFEE 

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Copyright,  1906,  by 
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CONTENTS 


L 

The  Relation  of  the  Law  to  Life 

7 

u. 

Singleness  in  Worship 
The  First  Commandment 

.      3» 

in. 

Spirituality  in  Worship     . 
The  Second  Commandment 

54 

IV. 

Present  Day  Reverence    . 
The  Third  Cofnmandment 

78 

v. 

Present  Day  Sabbath  Observance 
The  Fourth  Commandment 

,      99 

VI. 

Present  Day  Family  Life  . 
The  Fifth  Commandment 

1x9 

VII. 

Present  Day  Regard  for  Life  . 
The  Sixth  Commandment 

138 

VIII. 

Present  Day  Purity  . 
The  Seventh  Commandment 

155 

IX. 

Present  Day  Honesty 
The  Eighth  Commandment 

172 

X. 

Present  Day  Veracity 
The  Ninth  Commandment 

195 

XI. 

Present  Day  Contentment 

212 

The  Tenth  Commandment 
5 

943936 


The  Mosaic  Law  in  Modern  Life 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LffE 

And  God  spake  all  these  words,  saying,  I  am  the  Lord  thy 
God,  which  have  brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  out 
of  the  house  of  bondage. — Exodus  20  : 1,  2. 

That  grounds  the  law  of  God  on  the  right  of 
God.     By  it  you  are  rid  of  arbitrariness.     Here 
is  no  lightning  out  of  a  clear  sky.     Here  is  no 
loud  voiced  Despot  saying,  Thou  shalt  and  Thou 
shalt  not,  by  sheer  force  of  might.    The  law  of 
A  God  issues  from  the  right  of  God.     The  duty  of 
W  man  and  the  will  of  God  are  one  fact  seen  from 
J  below  and  above.     Seen  as  sometimes  cloud  is 
seen,  dark  and  forbidding  below,  but  surely  sun- 
c-^^       lit  and  beautiful  above. 

You  remember  that  mighty  hall  which  Merlin 
built  for  Arthur  long  ago.  All  the  sacred  mount 
of  Camelot  rose  to  it,  spire  after  spire,  tower  after 
tower.  There  were  four  great  zones  of  sculpture 
girding  it  round.  In  the  first  were  beasts  slay  ing 
7 


1 


I 


8      EELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

men,  in  the  second,  men  slaying  beasts,  in  the 
third  were  warriors,  perfect  men,  and  in  the 
fonrth  were  men  growing  wings.  But  over  all 
was  one  statue  of  the  King,  so  high,  so  bright 
against  the  sky  that  at  sunrise  the  people  in  the 
far  fields,  ;sp.  often  wasted  by  the  heathen  hordes, 
could  behbiblit  and  cry,  "  We  have  still  a  king." 
]  /  «^Chfey;  pxi  the  ages  of  men  cut  in  sculpture.  Mas- 
tered first  by  beasts,  then  becoming  master  of  the 
beasts,  then  ruler  of  his  own  kind  as  warriors 
rule  their  fellows,  then  mastering  the  universe  as 
angels  rise  above  the  things  that  hold  down  us 
men  of  earth.  But  all  the  while,  over  all,  how- 
ever wings  may  grow,  and  as  the  climax  of  the 
whole,  the  Figure  which  leads  all  men  to  say, 
"We  have  still  a  King."  We  do  not  outgrow 
Sinai,  because  we  do  not  outgrow  God.  And  the 
right  which  God  had  in  Israel  He  has  not  lost 
with  men  of  our  day.  He  said  to  Israel,  "You 
are  freemen  by  My  hand,  brought  out  of  the 
bondage  of  Egypt  by  My  power  ;  hear  the  voice 
of  your  King  ;  heed  His  law."  Speaking  across 
the  generations  the  voice  comes  to  ourselves, 
You  are  freemen,  too  ;  not  the  creatures  of  a  day 
and  not  puppets  of  fate  or  fortune.  Like  a 
greater  Israel,  you  have  been  made  freej  it  is 
your  heritage  from  God. 


RELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE      9 

"  And  He  that  looketh  wide  and  high, 
Nor  pauses  in  His  plan, 
Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  sky, 
Ere  freedom  out  of  man." 

But  freedom  finds  its  fulfillment  in  obedience. 
As  life  rises  zone  by  zone  from  the  brute  power 
to  the  angel  host,  it  only  comes  nearer  to  the 
Sovereign  whose  word  is  law  of  life.  Sinai  is  no 
mere  bit  of  history  slipped  into  our  books.  Sinai 
is  the  age-long  fact  of  God's  right  to  speak  to  men 
and  to  be  heeded.  The  word  slips  out  of  the  past 
tense,  says  no  longer,  "God  spake  all  these 
words,"  says  here  and  now  and  wherever  men 
are,  "God  speaks  these  words"  of  command  and 
sovereignty. 

"Daily  with  souls  that  cringe  and  plot, 
We  Sinais  climb  and  know  it  not ; 
Over  our  manhood  bend  the  skies; 

Against  our  fallen  and  traitor  lives 
The  great  winds  utter  prophecies, 

With  our  faint  hearts  the  mountain  strives." 

The  scene  at  Sinai  was  a  culmination  and  a  be- 
ginning— the  gathering  together  into  one  great 
scene  of  the  forces  of  history  and  making  them  a 
force  in  the  years  yet  to  come.  Because  of  what 
has  been,  the  Voice  said,  Be  this  and  Do  that. 

There  are  two  special  reasons  for  calling  men 
to  the  study  of  the  Sinai  law,  the  law  of  our  own 


r 


10   KELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

day  once  it  is  read  in  the  light  of  the  gospel. 
For  one  thing,  the  minds  of  thoughtful  men  are 
turning  more  and  more  to  the  ethical  import  of 
life.  In  the  department  of  social  and  political 
thought  the  strongest  and  most  marked  element 
is  the  ethical  one.  We  are  not  content  with  be- 
ing told  what  are  the  facts.  We  are  demanding 
to  know  whether  the  facts  ought  to  be  as  they  are. 
You  say,  This  is  the  fact ;  very  well,  I  will  not 
dispute  that,  but  now  tell  me  whether  we  may 
not  be  to  blame  that  the  fact  is  this,  and  whether 
we  may  have  a  hand  in  making  other  facts  that 
will  be  what  the  facts  ought  to  be.  You  say  that 
in  the  grind  of  competition,  it  is  necessary  that 
men  be  ground  to  powder  if  they  cannot  keep  out 
of  the  way.  Very  well,  let  that  be  true,  but  tell 
us  this  also,  ought  that  to  be  true  ?  Are  there 
elements  which  we  have  been  leaving  out  of  com- 
mercial life,  or  of  business  life,  which  we  may 
now  put  in?  It  is  no  time  for  denunciation. 
Most  of  our  evils  we  have  inherited  ;  we  cannot 
blame  ourselves  with  their  existence.  But  may 
we  not  be  to  blame  for  their  continuance?  May 
it  not  be  a  curse  upon  us  if  our  children  inherit 
them  ?  It  is  no  time  for  day-dreaming,  for  figur- 
ing up  possible  or  impossible  Utopias.  It  is  a 
time  for  turning  to  the  grave  deep  question  of 


KELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE    11 

the  thing  that  ought  to  be.  "  That  ought  to  be  " 
— it  is  a  weighty  word  that  "ought."  Whoever 
first  said  it,  it  is  true  that  if  we  could  put  all  the 
words  of  all  other  languages  and  our  own  into 
one  pan  of  the  scale,  and  this  word  "ought"  in 
the  other,  they  would  kick  the  beam.  We  make 
no  more  momentous  inquiry  than  this:  What 
ought  to  be?  And  we  get  our  answer  from  the 
ruling  of  God. 

Therein  lies  one  of  the  perils  of  present  thought. 

Concerned  with  the  meaning  of  duty,  we  find  it 

easy  to  leave  out  the  source  of  duty.     We  have 

even  come  upon  times  when  we  may  speak  of  re- 

^o>Tigion  and  leave  God  out.     We  describe  men  who 

k  v^      think  naught  of  God,  but  who  do  this  kind  thing 

f      or  that,  and  say,   "  If  any  one  is  a  Christian,  he 

^J       is  one,"  though  he  may  have  no  thought  of  God 

and  no  love  for  Christ.     From  across  the  sea 

Tolstoi  sends  us  his  definition  of  religion  as  the 

new  relation  of  man  to  the  world  about  him. 

From  our  own  side  of  the  sea,  men  speak  of  the 

fl^     peril  of  belief  in  God  or  warn  us  that  we  are  not 

J        to  be  concerned  with  duty  to  Him,  but  with  duty 

^.         to  our  fellows. 

Interested  in  matters  of  duty,  we  are  yet  in  dan- 
ger of  forgetting  whence  duty  issues.  Until  we 
read  human  duty  in  terms  of  the  will  of  God  we 


? 


12    BELATION  OP  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

have  not  read  it  finally  or  fairly.  We  are  seeking 
to  come  into  the  line  of  the  best  thinking  of  our 
own  times  when  we  reassure  ourselves  of  the  intent 
and  power  of  the  ten  commandments  as  the  clear- 
est statement  of  the  moral  law,  and  seeking  to 
hold  ourselves  to  the  deepest  truth  in  that  think- 
ing when  we  declare  that  the  moral  law  is  the 
voice  of  God  calling  men  to  duty. 

Another  reason  for  the  study  lies  in  current 
conditions.  It  is  time  the  thought  of  men  who 
wish  to  influence  their  fellows  for  right  turns  to 
this  law.  We  are  under  the  sway  of  many  other 
motives  than  this  of  obedience  to  duty.  At  this 
distance  we  are  reaping  the  fruits  of  the  teaching 
of  years  in  schools  beyond  seas  and  here.  The 
philosophy  of  recent  years  has  lost  its  rigour ;  in 
its  effort  to  be  empirical  and  to  grow  up  in  some 
natural  way  out  of  the  common  life  of  men  it  has 
gone  weak.  We  have  suffered  from  a  wide-spread 
teaching  that  the  true  motives  of  life  are  pleasure 
and  pain  motives,  that  on  the  whole  men  act  as 
they  think  will  be  best  for  them;  no  man  de- 
liberately chooses  a  thing  which  he  thinks  will 
bring  him  pain ;  the  goal  of  life  is  happiness. 
We  have  been  told  that  this  is  the  reason  our 
fathers  spent  so  much  thought  on  heaven.  They 
have  been  accused  of  teaching  us  that  the  main 


RELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE    13 

thing  is  to  get  to  heaven,  whoever  and  whatever 
yon  are  in  this  life.  Now,  of  conrse,  the  fathers 
did  not  teach  any  snch  doctrine,  bnt  if  they  had 
it  wonld  be  of  a  piece  with  the  teaching  of  much 
philosophy  of  later  years.  It,  to  be  sure,  says 
nothing  about  the  future  happiness,  but  it  makes 
out  a  very  plausible  case  that  the  real  aim  in  life 
is  happiness.  It  has  been  counted  the  spinning 
of  cobwebs  to  say  that  a  man  ought  to  do  his 
duty,  ought  to  obey  a  law  implanted  within  him 
by  God,  revealed  to  him  by  the  Scripture.  And 
through  this  process,  beginning  at  the  top  of  our 
civilization,  we  have  come  to  the  point  where 
the  sanctions  of  the  law  are  not  regarded.  It  is 
not  enough  for  us  that  the  law  of  the  land  re- 
quires or  forbids  a  thing.  Law  as  law  means 
little  to  us,  means  nothing  to  a  great  many 
men.  And  until  it  does  come  to  mean  much  to 
us,  until  we  leave  off  the  feeling  that  we  are  final 
judges  for  ourselves  of  what  we  ought  to  be  and 
do,  until  we  leave  off  the  feeling  that  no  one  has 
right  to  tell  us  Thou  shalt  and  Thou  shalt  not, 
and  come  into  the  feeling  that  it  is  man's  first 
duty  to  do  the  will  of  God,  we  have  not  come  into 
safe  position.  It  is  time  we  harked  back  to  the 
teaching  of  Christ  when  the  young  man  came  to 
Him   seeking  eternal  life:     "If  thou  wouldst 


1 


% 


14   EELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

enter  into  life,  keep  the  commandments."  If  we 
can  follow  him  and  claim  to  have  obeyed  them, 
we  shall  do  well,  but  even  then  there  will  come 
to  us  a  revealing  test,  which  will  show  us  how 
their  deeper,  truest  meaning  has  not  been  obeyed. 
For  these  commandments  do  not  come  to  us  as 
the  harsh  mandate  of  a  power  that  must  be 
obeyed.  So  much  our  freedom  assures.  They 
come  to  us  as  the  promise  of  life.  There  is  no 
full,  rich  life  without  obedience  to  them.  If 
they  restrain  us,  it  is  that  we  may  not  run  on  to 
wreck.  That  is  the  moral  of  the  wreck  of  the 
Mariposa.  Setting  out  from  a  Canadian  port  one 
day,  the  vessel  outsailed  all  that  started  with  her. 
The  heavy  fog  settled  down.  Vessels  of  other 
lines  reduced  their  speed  under  order  of  their 
masters,  while  the  Mariposa  steamed  ahead  at 
full  speed.  Let  others  slow  down  for  the  fog ; 
here  was  one  vessel  with  a  brave  master.  In 
the  gray  morning,  as  the  steamers  slowly  crept 
out  to  sea,  there  suddenly  came  out  of  the  fog  a 
small  boat  with  rowers  calling  for  help,  and  the 
slow-going,  ruled,  restrained  vessel  crept  as  near 
as  she  could  to  the  hull  of  the  Mariposa,  wrecked 
on  the  rocks,  and  rescued  her  passengers  from 
the  waves.  We  speak  of  self-mastery,  and  much 
that  we  mean  by  it  is  well  meant,  but  much  of  it 


BELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE   15 

is  big  with  peril.  A  mastery  that  falls  short  of 
a  divine  mastery  will  not  be  a  safe  nor  lasting 
one.  Until  we  hear  the  voice  of  God  in  our  duty 
and  do  it  as  unto  Him,  we  are  not  safely  in  the 
path  of  duty.  Every  man  needs  to  slow  down  for 
the  fog.  Steaming  ahead  for  our  own  ends,  tak- 
ing commands  from  ourselves,  letting  ourselves 
loose  to  run  as  we  will — there  is  wreck  in  that. 

It  cannot  be  said  too  many  times  that  the  only 
safe  democracy  is  a  theocracy,  wherein  every  man 
counts  himself  a  subject  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Until  we  get  such  a  democracy,  we  shall 
find  our  civil  laws  hard  to  enforce.  We  shall 
have  men  saying,  and  saying  truthfully,  that  the 
churches  are  not  wielding  the  influence  they 
ought  to  wield,  and  that  the  moral  atmosphere  is 
enervating*  The  law  of  the  land  rules  us  from 
without ;  the  law  of  the  moral  world  rules  us 
from  within,  each  of  us  commanded  by  God.  It 
was  Kant  who  put  the  two  together  so  well  for  us, 
when  he  declared  that  two  things  filled  him  with 
awe — the  starry  heavens  above  and  the  moral  law 
within.  One  is  the  voice  of  God  speaking  to  us 
from  without ;  the  other  is  that  voice  speaking 
from  within.  The  voice  is  one  voice,  but  it  must 
be  heard  as  the  voice  of  God  before  we  shall 
obey  it  as  we  ought     And  the  laws  of  men  which 


16    KELATION  OP  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

attempt  to  interpret  the  law  of  God  are  poor 
makeshifts  for  the  inner  law  itself,  which 
was  voiced  at  Sinai,  but  which  was  written 
on  the  heart  of  man  before  the  multitude 
of  Israel  heard  it.  There  has  recently  come  to 
light  a  word  of  our  gentle  Whittier  which  flashes 
the  whole  truth  before  us.  He  speaks  what  we 
all  feel  of  joy  that  the  human  side  of  life  has  been 
so  altered  and  sweetened,  sees  as  we  see  that  the 
world  is  growing  better,  because  sweeter  and 
tenderer.  He  points  out  the  change  in  our  civil 
codes,  that  the  law  of  revenge  is  no  longer  there, 
that  eye  for  eye  and  tooth  for  tooth  is  not  the  rule 
of  living  with  us.  All  that  is  well.  But  he 
could  not  be  fair  to  the  times,  as  we  cannot,  with- 
out sounding  the  word  of  warning  that  all  the  more 
for  our  amiable  tenderness  do  we  need  the  coun- 
terpoise of  a  strong  sense  of  justice.  It  is 
Whittier-like  to  say : — "  It  is  well  for  us  that  we 
have  learned  to  listen  to  the  persuasions  of  the 
Beatitudes,  but  there  are  crises  in  all  lives  which 
require  the  emphatic  Thou  Shalt  Not  of  the 
Decalogue."  I  am  only  seeing  what  any  man 
sees  when  I  say  that  such  a  time  is  on  us  now. 
Not  that  we  have  been  growing  worse  with  the 
years,  but  that  as  we  have  risen  in  power  and  op- 
portunity we  have  been  beclouding  the  law  by 


KELATKXNT  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE    17 

which  we  rose.  The  emphatic  Thou  Shalt  Not  of 
the  Decalogue  has  brought  us  into  reach  of  the 
persuasions  of  the  Beatitudes,  but  it  has  not  rid 
us  of  the  necessity  for  the  emphasis  of  its  own 
commands.  We  are  always  in  danger  of  becom- 
ing lawless  through  the  development  of  self-con- 
trol, and  then  there  come  times  of  such  need  that 
we  are  turned  back  to  the  true  lawgiver.  It  is 
time  to  give  God  the  reins.  Time  to  do  it  in  the 
large  way,  time  to  do  it  in  the  personal  life. 
The  run-away  of  self-seeking  is  on  us ;  we  want 
our  own  way  and  chafe  at  law.  Our  safety  lies 
in  giving  Him  the  reins,  in  finding  in  His  law 
the  rule  of  life.  We  want  no  ancient  Jewish 
law  ;  we  want  something  which  God  spake,  God 
who  has  right  to  speak. 

It  surprises  some  men  that  the  ten  command- 
ments are  so  completely  negative  in  their  form. 
Except  the  fifth,  and  at  first  glance  the  fourth, 
not  one  is  frankly  affirmative.  Thou  shalt  not, 
Thou  shalt  not — that  is  the  constant  refrain.  Ah, 
yes,  and  therein  they  are  true  to  life.  Every  one 
in  its  heart  involves  positive  command,  that  of 
course  you  see.  If  there  is  to  be  no  god  before 
Him,  then  He  is  to  occupy  the  whole  temple  of 
the  worshipper.  If  we  must  not  steal,  it  is  that 
we  shall  regard  the  rights  of  our  fellows.    If  we 


t 


18    KELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

must  not  covet,  it  is  that  we  may  wish  our  fellows 
well  and  be  content  in  our  lot.  And  yet  it  is 
strongly  true  to  life  that  the  form  should  be  neg- 
ative. It  is  a  frank  recognition  of  that  which 
we  need  no  book  to  teach  us,  that  we  are  perverse 
and  quick  to  stray.  The  moral  law,  the  deca- 
logue, stands  as  a  great  spiked  fence  of  God  to  shut 
us  in  from  our  wanderings,  and  is  there  because 
it  is  sure  that  we  will  seek  to  stray.  In  the  books 
of  theology  they  call  it  original  sin.  Some  call 
it  one  thing  and  some  another,  but  it  means  per- 
versity, means  self-assertion,  and  we  would  be 
strangely  blind  if  we  did  not  see  it. 

But  the  law  does  not  come  merely  to  hold  us  in. 
It  comes  as  safeguard  and  protection  for  our  lives, 
to  keep  us  out  of  that  which  would  ruin  us.  It 
was  so  that  Moses  thought  of  the  law.  Years 
after  Sinai  had  become  only  a  memory  to  him,  he 
did  not  mistake  its  meaning.  In  that  beautiful 
farewell  address  which  he  made  to  his  people,  he 
said  of  the  whole  scene :— "  In  His  right  hand  was 
a  fiery  law  for  them,"  and  at  once  he  adds,  that 
no  man  may  mistake  its  purpose,  "Yea,  He 
loved  the  people. f '  The  law  of  Sinai  was  the  love 
of  God  framed  in  ten  words.  Look  closely  and 
steadily  upon  the  law  and  you  will  see  it  radiant 
with  the  gospel.     Sinai  is  Calvary  fifteen  cen- 


BELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE    19 

turies  early.  It  is  hard  and  forbidding,  because 
we  are  rebellious  and  self-assertive.  But  there  is 
in  it  the  infinite  love  of  God  and  there  is  naught 
else  in  it.  By  it  He  would  hold  us  back  from  our 
own  ruin. 

Note  the  traits  of  this  moral  law.  See  that  it 
appeals  first  of  all  to  the  individual :  Thou,  not 
Ye.  It  singles  men  out.  It  uses  no  plurals.  It 
is  we  who  pluralize  the  law.  It  is  we  who  say 
what  "all  men"  ought  to  do.  The  law  itself 
says,  Thou,  singles  us  out,  bids  us  obey.  And 
even  when  the  law  of  God  addresses  itself  to  a 
nation  it  is  as  one  great  life  which  must  be  con- 
trolled. We  are  told  that  corporations  have  no 
souls,  and  that  therefore  the  moral  law  does  not 
apply  to  them.  No,  it  does  not.  It  applies  only 
to  the  men  who  make  up  the  corporations.  Your 
machine  has  no  soul,  and  the  law  does  not  forbid 
it  to  kill,  but  if  the  child  runs  in  the  way  of  the 
machine  and  the  man  who  controls  it  does  not 
stay  its  course,  the  moral  law  is  outraged.  And 
all  our  talk  of  the  soulless  corporations  is  beside 
the  mark,  for  the  men  who  are  the  corporations 
are  not  soulless,  and  whether  the  civil  law  can 
reach  them,  the  unerring  hand  of  God  can  reach 
them.  We  are  glib  with  our  word  of  what 
"people"  ought  to  do.    We  know  that  "citi- 


20    EELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

zens"  ought  to  pay  their  taxes.  We  have  no 
difficulty  in  saying  that  " Christians''  ought  to 
be  loyal  to  the  Church  of  Christ.  We  consider 
it  " every  man's"  duty  to  help  forward  the  good 
works  of  the  State  and  Church  as  far  as  he  has 
power.  Speak  in  those  broad,  impersonal,  plural 
ways,  and  we  have  no  argument  and  no  hesita- 
tion. But  the  moral  law  does  not  speak  so.  It 
says  Thou.  Every  man  ought  to  pay  his  taxes  ; 
then  I  ought.  And  I  am  not  exempted  by  any- 
thing that  would  not  exempt  any  other  man. 
Every  Christian  ought  to  be  loyal  to  the  Church  ; 
then  I  have  no  right  to  take  any  relation  to  the 
Church  which  any  other  Christian  may  not  fairly 
take.  Men  ought  to  be  honest ;  then  I  ought  to 
be.  And  if  it  could  be  proved  that  the  universal 
law  has  no  validity,  the  personal  law  would  be  as 
valid.  Whether  you  hear  the  moral  law  or  not, 
it  speaks  to  me — so  every  man  must  say.  We 
are  constantly  being  swallowed  up  in  the  bigness 
of  our  nation.  We  cannot  see  the  trees  for  the 
wood.  We  cannot  see  the  men  for  the  multitude. 
We  sit  beside  David,  when  the  prophet  comes  in 
to  tell  of  the  wrong  of  another  than  ourselves. 
Our  souls  rebel  within  us.  We  are  splendidly 
indignant.  Our  eyes  flash  fire  against  the  evil 
that  has  been  done.    But  the  prophet  of  God 


EELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE    21 

levels  finger  at  us,  and  says  :  Thou  art  the  man, 
and  we  cower  and  shrink,  for  the  law  which  we 
have  pluralized  so  easily  and  at  such  little  cost 
has  swung  out  before  us  into  God's  singular 
number.  Where  we  said  They  and  He,  God 
said  Thou.  There  is  vast  discomfort  in  such  a 
word.  It  is  true  to  life,  this  supposed  jest  we 
have  been  reading  lately,  in  which  a  wife  asks 
her  husband  on  Sabbath  afternoon  what  particu- 
lar fault  of  his  the  preacher  dealt  with  this  morn- 
ing, and  when  he  asks  why,  answers  that  he  has 
been  unbearably  cross  ever  since  the  service  of 
the  morning.  The  sun  which  sends  its  rays  re- 
vealingly  into  the  whole  heavens  sends  its  ray  to 
each  of  us.  And  the  law  which  deals  with  the 
duty  of  men  is  the  law  which  deals  with  our  duty 
— yours,  mine. 

But  while  it  makes  appeal  to  the  individual,  it 
makes  its  appeal  to  all  individuals  alike.  The 
Jews  fancied  that  "  the  souls  of  all  Jews  even  yet 
unborn  were  summoned  to  Sinai  in  their  numbers 
numberless"  to  hear  this  code  of  law ;  so  that  in 
the  East  to  this  day  when  a  Jew  is  indignant 
over  the  imputation  of  a  wrong,  he  exclaims: 
"My  soul,  too,  has  been  on  Sinai  \v  Ah,  yes,  and 
every  soul  has  been  on  Sinai.  The  voice  that 
speaks  to  me  is  the  voice  that  speaks  to  you.    I 


22    EELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

may  know  the  moral  law  that  governs  you  by 
finding  what  is  written  on  my  own  heart.  That 
gives  us  right  to  judge  the  deeds  of  others  as 
every  honest  man  must  judge  them.  It  is  a 
strange  misreading  of  our  Lord's  word,  "  Judge 
not,  that  ye  be  not  judged,"  which  lets  a  man 
think  he  must  be  invertebrate  in  passing  judg- 
ment on  the  deeds  of  his  fellows.  What  He 
teaches  is  that  when  we  pass  judgment  on  our 
fellows,  it  must  be  on  principles  which  we  are 
ready  to  have  applied  to  our  own  lives.  We  are 
to  condemn  others  only  when  we  are  ready  to  be 
condemned  for  the  same  offense.  We  are  to 
praise  ourselves  only  when  we  are  ready  to  praise 
others  for  the  same  act.  With  what  judgment 
we  judge,  we  shall  be  judged.  That  is  fair.  Ee- 
call  that  story  of  the  woman  taken  in  sin  and 
brought  for  judgment  to  the  Master.  The  Ee- 
vision  omits  the  whole  narrative,  but  it  is  an- 
other of  those  stories  which  may  not  have  hap- 
pened, but  which  are  true.  It  was  the  chance 
for  a  right  royal  indignation,  and  they  were 
using  it  to  the  utmost.  The  Master  heard  the 
story,  grieving  and  sad.  Then  His  eye  swept 
over  the  company,  self-righteous  men,  gloating 
over  their  sight  of  lost  virtue,  read  them  through 
and  through,  saw  the  shrinking,  broken,  repent- 


\ 


KELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE    23 

ant  sinner,  remembered  and  honoured  the  law 
which  punished  such  offense  with  stoning — all 
that  in  an  instant.  And  when  He  had  seen  each 
face  there,  and  every  man  had  seen  himself  in  the 
light  of  that  gaze,  He  stooped  down  and  wrote 
we  know  not  what  on  the  ground,  saying,  "He 
that  is  without  sin  among  you,  let  him  cast  the 
first  stone  at  her."  Wrote  on,  wrote  on,  and  no 
stone  came  whistling  through  the  air,  no  cry  of 
pain  from  a  bleeding  victim  of  her  own  sin. 
Then  He  looked  up.  Only  the  repentant  sinner 
was  there ;  accusers  had  slunk  away,  shrinking 
from  the  sight  of  their  own  sin,  unwilling  to  be 
judged  as  they  were  judging.  The  oldest  who 
knew  their  hearts  best  had  gone  first.  Ah,  how 
many  tongues  would  be  stricken  dumb  as  they 
tattle  their  little  tales  of  scandal  and  rebuke,  if 
they  but  knew  that  the  law  they  use  for  judging 
others  shall  yet  be  the  law  by  which  they  shall  be 
judged !  How  many  who  love  to  assume  great 
virtues  and  condemn  others  before  their  fellows 
would  quail  before  the  revealing  glance  of  Jesus 
Christ!  We  know  not  what  He  wrote.  Per- 
haps He  wrote  her  sentence  of  condemnation  in 
the  dust  and  saw  the  wind  efface  it  as  His  look 
had  effaced  their  self-approval. 
This  is  the  meaning  of  His  word  of  judging. 


24    EELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

Let  that  sentence  fall  on  your  own  head  which 
you  pass  on  another.  Shall  I  see  men  steal  and 
reserve  my  judgment?  Shall  I  hear  men  take  in 
vain  the  name  of  God  and  smile  in  hope  that  they 
have  done  no  wrong  ?  Shall  I  see  men  violate 
the  purity  of  homes  and  meekly  say,  "Far  be  it 
from  me  to  judge  another,"  as  though  perhaps 
for  him  it  might  not  be  wrong.  In  God's  name, 
no.  Let  me  instead  realize  that  the  law  which 
binds  me  to  God  is  the  law  which  binds  him  to 
God.  Let  me  pass  on  him  the  judgment  which 
he  shall  pass  on  me  when  I  have  committed  his 
offence.  Let  me  not  condemn  him,  and  hope  for 
immunity  myself.  It  is  a  law  for  me,  but  it  is  a 
law  for  all  men  like  me. 

It  is  common  to  say,  "Every  man  for  himself. 
If  I  want  to  do  this  or  that,  what  is  it  to  you? 
You  do  not  care  to  do  it ;  very  well,  then  do  not, 
but  do  not  intrude  your  thoughts  on  me.  If  I 
choose  to  do  this,  it  is  my  business,  and  you  have 
no  right  to  object.  If  I  and  forty  others  choose 
to  conduct  a  prize  fight,  you  need  not  come ;  stay 
away,  if  you  wish,  but  keep  your  objection  for 
your  own  case,  and  let  us  have  our  way.  Mind 
your  own  business  and  let  us  mind  ours."  It  is 
plausible  talk  ;  it  is  not  argument.  It  forgets 
that  we  are  all  bound  in  the  one  bundle  of  life. 


KELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE    25 

The  thing  that  brutalizes  the  nation  brutalizes 
the  people  who  resist  it.  You  cannot  have  prize 
fights  without  lowering  the  tone  of  the  nation. 
You  cannot  run  a  gambling  den  without  lettiDg 
loose  its  evil  influences  far  beyond  the  circle  of 
those  who  gamble  to-day.  How  did  the  spirit  of 
unrest  among  so  many  of  our  boys  and  young 
men  originate?  What  explains  the  spread  of 
gambling  in  offices,  on  the  street,  among  our 
women's  card  clubs?  Why  are  men  demanding 
that  every  man  who  handles  money  must  be  so 
heavily  bonded  ?  Somewhere  there  has  been  an 
evil  influence  at  work.  The  law  cannot  reach 
the  heart  of  it.  It  lies  too  deep  for  that.  But 
the  law  may  control  the  actions  of  men  who  are 
willing  to  have  their  whole  moral  tone  lowered, 
may  control  that  action  in  the  interest  of  men 
whose  lives  are  bound  in  the  same  bundle  with 
them.  Every  man  who  does  a  wrong  helps  to 
make  it  easier  for  another  man  to  do  it,  helps  to 
make  it  harder  for  every  other  man  to  resist  it, 
helps  to  make  it  harder  for  every  other  man  to  be 
the  man  he  ought  to  be.  Such  talk  forgets,  also, 
that  men  do  have  the  right  to  condemn  other 
men  for  wrong-doing.  We  should  be  rendered 
imbecile  if  we  should  say:  "I  do  not  know 
whether  it  is  wrong  for  him  to  steal  or  not ;  all  I 


26    EELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

know  is  that  it  is  wrong  for  me."  The  very  fact 
that  you  know  it  is  wrong  for  you  makes  you 
know  it  is  wrong  for  him.  There  are  acts  which 
differ  for  different  persons.  There  are  grave 
questions  of  motive  that  must  determine  our 
judgment.  While  we  are  ignorant  of  the  motive, 
we  may  need  to  reserve  our  judgment.  But  these 
are  not  the  offences  against  the  law  of  moral  life. 
There  are  no  good  motives  for  stealing.  There 
are  no  good  reasons  for  profane  language.  There 
is  nothing  that  excuses  bearing  false  witness. 
Once  we  know  those  offences,  we  become  foolish 
if  we  seek  to  reserve  our  judgment.  We  know 
the  man  who  committed  them  violated  the  law  of 
his  moral  life,  the  law  of  God,  and  we  can  ap- 
prove or  we  can  reserve  our  judgment  only  at 
cost  to  our  own  morality. 

See  this  third  fact  about  the  moral  law,  that 
while  it  controls  the  outer  life,  it  makes  direct 
appeal  to  the  inner  life.  The  decalogue  begins 
with  a  purely  inner  fact  and  ends  with  one. 
They  are  commandments  which  may  be  violated 
throughout  the  whole  life  of  a  man,  without  com- 
ing once  into  his  outer  life.  Each  of  the  com- 
mandments has  an  inner  meaning.  Jesus  read 
that  meaning  for  us  and  made  it  plain  that  not 
one  of  them  may  be  kept  in  the  outer  life  alone. 


RELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE    27 

I  may  not  take  your  money  ;  yet  I  may  steal.  I 
may  never  warm  my  hand  in  your  blood,  yet  my 
heart  may  make  me  a  murderer.  I  may  never 
unsettle  you  from  your  possessions  or  your  happi- 
ness, yet  I  may  covet  all  that  you  have.  I  may  not 
declare  my  faith  in  another  God ;  I  may  bow  my 
knees  before  the  shrine  of  the  one  true  God,  and 
be  an  idolater  and  a  hater  of  God.  All  this  be- 
cause the  moral  law  appeals  to  the  inner  life.  It 
is  not  so  with  the  civil  law.  That  deals  with  the 
outer  life,  and  only  slightly  with  the  inner.  It 
asks  my  motive  that  it  may  judge  my  deed,  but 
it  must  often  go  blindly  on  its  way.  The  civil 
law  may  stand  ready  to  strike  a  thought  when  it 
puts  its  head  out  of  the  door  of  the  heart,  but  so 
long  as  it  stays  inside  civil  law  cannot  reach  it. 
Every  man  has  right  of  eminent  domain  in  his 
own  heart.  There  is  no  search  warrant  strong 
enough  nor  absolute  enough  to  get  at  his  thoughts 
there.  I  may  think  my  libel  as  I  please,  may 
think  my  false  witness  against  you  as  I  will,  so 
far  as  civil  law  can  go — if  I  keep  it  in.  But  the 
moral  law,  this  law  of  God,  asks  me  no  questions 
of  bolts  or  doors,  comes  into  my  heart  and 
searches  its  darkest  corner,  and  though  I  hide 
my  sin  where  I  can  scarce  see  it  myself,  there  the 
moral  law  finds  it  and  routs  it  out  to  judgment 


i 


\n 


28   BELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

And  if  it  were  given  the  place  of  rule  in  my  life, 
civil  law  would  be  of  no  concern  to  me.  There 
would  be  no  evil  thought  which  might  break  out 
through  the  door  of  my  heart  and  need  the  strong 
hand  of  the  law  to  check  it  or  punish  it.  What- 
ever the  police  force  of  a  city  may  do,  and  it 
might  do  vastly  more  in  any  city  than  it  does,  its 
work  is  the  surface  work.  It  can  only  warn  men 
against  letting  out  the  evil  which  some  power 
ought  to  hinder  their  having  in  their  heart  at  all. 
The  civil  law  tells  a  man,  "  If  you  do  this  thing, 
you  shall  be  punished ;  therefore  do  not  do  it." 
The  moral  law  bids  him  thwart  his  whole  desire 
to  do  the  thing.  So  long  as  men  have  wrong  de- 
sires, they  will  do  wrong  things.  The  only  deep 
and  radical  cure  is  to  throttle  those  desires  until 
they  die. 

Mark  this  further  trait — the  moral  law  makes 
no  provision  for  its  own  violation.  It  has  no 
offer  of  pardon.  It  does  not  hold  out  hope  to  any 
man.  There  are  no  penalties  attached  which 
make  it  possible  for  man  to  escape.  It  says  Thou 
shalt  not.  If  any  man  asks,  "But  what  if  I 
dot"  it  has  no  answer.  It  simply  marks  that 
man  as  enemy  of  the  very  universe.  Not  one  of 
us  who  ever  sinned  without  becoming  enemy  to 
the  universe.     If  I  violate  the  law  of  this  land,  I 


EELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE   29 

may  flee  to  another  and  be  safe.  If  I  violate 
the  law  of  God,  there  is  no  land  to  which 
I  may  flee.  If  I  dwell  in  the  uttermost  part 
of  the  earth,  He  is  there.  If  I  ascend  np  into 
heaven,  He  is  there  j  if  I  make  my  bed  in 
hell,  He  is  there.  Let  me  violate  the  law 
of  God,  let  me  sin  against  the  moral  law,  and  I 
become  a  fugitive  and  a  vagabond  in  the  moral 
universe.  There  is  no  offer  of  mercy  in  the  code 
of  law.  Here  are  these  ten  commandments  ;  they 
commend  themselves  as  fair  statement  of  the 
moral  law.  They  are  words  which  God  spake. 
Only  shallow  souls  will  count  it  easy  to  keep 
them.  Lay  your  own  life  alongside  them,  and 
they  put  the  best  to  shame.  If  any  man,  then, 
counts  it  impossible  to  keep  the  moral  law,  let  us 
not  mince  matters.  It  is  impossible — impossible 
because  we  have  weakened  our  power  by  viola- 
tions of  the  past.  Not  a  man  of  us  who  has  kept 
the  Sinai  code,  the  code  of  his  human  nature,  the 
code  of  the  voice  of  God — not  a  man  who  has 
kept  the  Sinai  code  from  the  centre  of  his  life  out 
to  its  circumference.  But  is  he  thereby  excused  t 
Not  a  man  of  us  who  does  not  know  that  he 
violated  that  law  by  his  own  choice,  who  does  not 
know  in  his  heart  of  hearts  that  he  could  have 
chosen  other.     Let  the  books  and  the  lecturers 


30   KELATIOK  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE 

confound  us  with  long  words  and  profound  dis- 
cussions of  the  bondage  of  the  will,  we  are  not 
deceived  about  ourselves.  We  note  that  the  dis- 
cussions which  end  with  the  assertion  that  the 
man  is  not  free  to  do  good  or  ill,  are  dealing  with 
the  hypothetical  man.  As  for  ourselves,  call  it 
arrogance  or  what  you  will,  we  are  free.  We  are 
free  to  be  truthful  j  the  lie  comes  by  no  necessity. 
The  hateful  word  could  have  been  checked.  We 
are  to  blame  for  the  sin  and  we  know  it.  We  have 
no  answer  but  silence  when  Solomon  cries  out : 
"  Who  can  say,  I  have  made  my  heart  clean  j  I 
am  pure  from  my  sin?"  And  once  having 
violated  it,  it  has  no  word  of  comfort  for  us.  Its 
word  is  remorse  ;  there  is  the  sin  and  here  are  you 
— face  your  sin  and  bear  the  penalty. 

But  it  is  that  sort  of  word,  ending  there,  that 
drives  men  to  the  folly  of  recklessness  or  suicide. 
That  is  not  the  final  word  of  God  to  us.  It  is  ex- 
actly our  hopelessness  and  helplessness  in  pres- 
ence of  sin  that  makes  the  message  of  the  gos- 
pel mean  most  to  us.  The  apostle  calls  the  law 
our  schoolmaster,  to  lead  us  to  Christ.  The  word 
is  that  used  for  the  trusted  slave  who  was  sent 
each  day  with  the  children  of  the  Greeks  to  bring 
them  to  their  teachers.  They  were  not  them- 
selves the  teachers.     It  was  only  their  business 


KELATION  OF  THE  LAW  TO  LIFE    31 

to  see  to  it  that  the  children  found  their  way 
to  the  teachers  who  waited  to  instruct  them. 
This  service  the  law  renders  us.  From  it  we  do 
not  learn  the  way  of  life.  Obeying  it  we  come 
into  the  path  wherein  we  shall  be  taught  the  way 
of  life.  For  in  the  fulfillment  of  the  law  the 
gospel  comes  to  our  aid.  And  after  we  have 
brought  the  law  of  God  to  bear  with  all  its  power 
on  ourselves  or  our  fellows,  we  will  find  ourselves 
pointed  to  Jesus  Christ  who  bore  for  us  the  curse 
of  the  law.  We  shall  do  badly  if  at  the  end  of 
our  study  we  do  not  know  Him  better  and  feel 
more  than  we  ever  have  felt  our  need  for  Him 
and  His  gracious  help. 

In  the  wilderness  tabernacle  there  were  laid  the 
two  tables  of  stone  on  which  were  graven  the  ten 
words  which  make  the  law.  But  there  is  the  be- 
ginning of  the  gospel  in  the  fact  that  their  rest- 
ing place  was  in  the  ark  beneath  the  mercy-seat. 
Every  man  who  knows  his  own  heart  will  be  glad 
they  are  there.  He  will  honour  the  law,  he  will 
feel  his  obligation  to  it.  He  will  know  his  failure 
and  the  stain  that  mars  his  life,  and  he  will  find 
his  hope  in  the  gospel  of  pardon  and  power. 


% 


n 

SINGLENESS  IN  WORSHIP 
(The  First  Commandment) 


Thou  shall  have  no  other  gods  before  Me. — Exodus  20 :  3. 
\  And  so  the  decalogue  opens  with  a  declaration 

j*  of  a  claim  of  God.     There  is  all  the  logic  of  life 

and  of  history  for  such  a  beginning.  The  Scrip- 
tures principally  teach  what  man  is  to  believe 
concerning  God,  and  what  duty  God  requires  of 
man.  Not  at  all  that  Israel  understood  at  first 
the  fullness  of  the  command.  Certainly  there 
were  times  when  Israel  entered  very  partially  into 
the  meaning.  It  left  room  in  the  people' s  thought 
for  the  reality  of  other  gods.  Probably  they  un- 
derstood it  to  be  a  claim  upon  their  undivided 
allegiance  to  Him,  even  though  they  might  rec- 
ognize other  gods  in  other  nations,  and  might 
believe  that  their  God,  Jehovah,  had  no  sover- 
eign relation  to  other  gods.  However  that  was, 
and  it  is  largely  speculation,  the  commandment 
itself  is  much  larger  than  any  such  understanding. 
As  the  conception  grew  towards  the  fuller 
thought  of  the  absoluteness  of  God's  existence 


SINGLENESS  IN  WOESHIP  33 

and  right  over  the  world  the  commandment  was 
found  to  have  been  framed  for  it.  There  is  no 
place  nor  room  in  the  universe  for  another  god, 
and  as  the  majesty  and  power  of  the  true  God 
came  into  view,  the  gods  of  the  heathen  appeared 
what  they  always  were,  vanity.  It  was  not  long 
before  those  who  understood  the  commandment 
saw  what  I  may  call  the  intolerance  of  all  truth. 
Granted  that  a  thing  is  true,  there  is  no  room  in 
the  universe  for  its  opposite.  If  Israel  thought 
Jehovah  its  national  God  certainly  its  prophets 
and  seers  soon  came  to  see  that  He  is  a  God  of  no 
nation  but  of  the  universe.  And  yet  with  that 
knowledge  need  come  no  pride  of  faith,  but  a 
broadening  of  it  No  one  saw  more  clearly  than 
the  apostle  Paul  how  impossible  is  any  other  God 
than  the  true  God.  And  yet  it  is  he  who  declares 
most  plainly  that  everywhere  men  are  feeling 
after  Him  if  haply  they  might  find  Him.  His 
law  is  written  in  their  hearts.  It  is  He  whom 
they  ignorantly  worship.  It  is  He  who  has  sent 
rain  and  fruitful  seasons,  not  among  the  Jews 
alone,  but  among  the  very  men  who  have  bowed 
down  to  wood  and  stone. 

We  may  need  reminding,  surely  no  more  than 
that,  that  our  present  day  concern  is  not  with  the 
first  Jewish  conception  of  a  law  which  has  proved 


34         THE  FIEST  COMMANDMENT 

sufficient  for  the  highest  civilization.  If  they 
took  the  law  narrowly,  it  stood  as  it  was,  waiting 
for  that  broader  knowledge  of  God  which  could 
make  it  plain.  There  are  not  gods.  There  is  one 
God.  In  His  presence  let  no  other  be  presumed 
or  pretended.  Moreover  the  one  God  has  revealed 
Himself  to  all  men.  They  have  seen  Him  dimly 
at  times,  but  the  great  word  of  the  first  chapter 
of  John's  gospel  furnishes  key  to  the  meaning  of 
religion.  John  the  Baptist  is  not  the  light  of  the 
world,  but  "  There  was  the  true  light,  even  the 
light  which  lighteth  every  man  coming  into  the 
world."  He  came  into  the  world  at  a  specific 
time,  but  He  is  the  light  which  lightens  every 
man.  Max  Muller  is  surely  right  in  saying  that 
the  source  of  all  religion  in  the  human  heart  is 
the  perception  of  the  infinite,  the  yearning  of  the 
soul  after  God.  Men  the  ages  through  and  the 
world  around  have  been  seeking  after  God,  and 
He  after  whom  they  have  been  seeking  is  this  one 
God,  whose  law  we  are  studying. 

The  most  important  thought  a  man  has  is  his 
thought  of  God.  In  the  rush  and  hurry  of  our 
lives  we  have  few  enough  thoughts  about  Him. 
Days  pass  without  the  turning  of  our  minds  to 
Him.  And  yet  it  is  true  that  our  thought  of  God 
is  the  main  formative  thought  we  have.     It  de- 


SINGLENESS  IN  WOKSHIP  35 

termines  our  ideas  of  duty.  If  our  thought 
leaves  Him  yonder,  far  away  from  the  world, 
then  our  duty  becomes  a  mechanical  obedience  to 
a  system  of  laws.  If  our  thought  makes  Him 
Father  to  us,  always  about  us,  always  interested 
in  us,  then  our  duty  becomes  not  mechanical,  but 
the  seeking  and  the  doing  of  His  will. 

Our  thought  of  God  determines  our  outlook  on 
the  world.  If  He  is  a  God,  yonder  at  a  distance, 
then  the  world  becomes  simply  a  place  in  which 
men  trample  one  another  and  no  one  cares.  Let 
them  settle  their  little  squabbles.  He  cannot  be 
moved  about  that.  But  if,  instead,  we  have 
taken  Christ's  thought,  the  world  becomes  a  scene 
of  dramatic  interest.  We  find  the  meaning  of 
that  word  of  the  minute  care  of  God.  The  spar- 
row flutters  down  under  His  eye.  You  say  He 
minds  the  head  of  a  king  only.  You  say,  as  the 
pagan  philosopher,  that  the  gods  concern  them- 
selves with  the  great  things  but  not  with  the 
small ;  then  recall  the  word  that  the  hairs  of  our 
heads  are  numbered.  The  world  becomes  a  dif- 
ferent place  by  the  light  in  which  we  view  God. 
There  is  no  sadder  creed  than  the  creed  of  the 
atheist.  It  is  an  orphaned  world  without  the 
Father's  care,  and  we  live  in  it  as  orphans.  It  is 
a  sad  world  in  which  indifference  leaves  us ;  a 


36  THE  FIEST  COMMANDMENT 

world  in  which  we  do  not  know  whether  He  cares 
or  is  concerned  with  onr  affairs.  There  is  no 
thonght  which  so  determines  the  outlook  of  a 
man  on  the  world  as  his  thought  of  God. 

So  does  the  same  thought  determine  our  ideal 
of  attainment.  Every  man  is  bound  to  face  at 
some  time  the  question  of  the  value  of  living. 
Suppose  he  runs  his  course  faithfully,  what  is 
at  the  other  end  f  To  what  are  we  coming  ?  No 
matter  how  faithfully  we  live,  sometimes  a  man 
fails  in  life  ;  what  is  it  he  has  lost  ?  That  is  not 
determined  by  one's  thought  of  man.  It  is  de- 
termined by  his  thought  of  God.  For  if  man  is 
a  child  of  God,  his  consummation  is  a  very  dif- 
ferent thing  from  that  which  waits  if  he  is  the  re- 
sult of  forces  which  are  impersonal  and  mechan- 
ical. And  if  he  is  a  child  of  God  the  whole  of  his 
life  lies  wrapped  up  in  the  query  as  to  the  char- 
acter of  God. 

The  most  important  thought  a  man  has  then  is 
that  about  God.  Therein  lies  the  danger  of  much 
of  our  current  thinking.  Our  scientific  devotion 
has  been  beautiful.  Men  have  been  giving  their 
lives  to  the  analysis  of  the  phenomena  of  the 
world.  But  there  has  grown  up  an  opinion  that 
beside  the  definiteness  of  our  knowledge  of 
weights  and  measures,  of  physical  and  scientific 


SINGLENESS  IN  WORSHIP  37 

things,  our  thought  of  God  must  necessarily  be 
vague  and  indefinite,  if  not  even  impossible.  It 
is  easy  to  dismiss  the  whole  matter,  to  say  that  all 
talk  of  God  is  speculation,  as  is  all  talk  of  every- 
thing that  will  not  yield  to  the  tests  of  physical 
science.  Over  against  that  there  must  always 
stand  the  word  of  Him  who  so  revealed  God  to 
us  :  "  This  is  life  eternal  that  they  might  know 
Thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom 
Thou  hast  sent."  If  you  ask  Him,  then  it  is 
possible  to  know  God.  Our  thoughts  about  Him 
can  be  verified.  They  can  be  verified  in  history. 
They  can  be  verified  in  personal  experience. 
They  can  be  verified  by  the  tests  of  logic.  And 
President  Hall  was  right  when  he  told  the  learned 
men  of  India  that  the  chief  end  of  Christianity  is 
the  knowledge  of  the  Infinite  One. 

But  I  hasten  to  the  study  of  the  commandment. 
"  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  Me."  It 
involves  three  things  which  collide  with  much 
current  thought. 

1.  The  personality  of  God.  "  Before  Me !  " 
•^    Here  is  no  impersonal  force.     Here  is  nothing 


which  can  properly  be  taken  as  the  Principle  of 
life.  Here  is  a  Person  who  will  not  be  under- 
stood by  any  one  of  His  attributes.  We  cannot 
now  go  far  afield  into  the  discussion  of  person* 


38  THE  FIRST  COMMANDMENT 

ality  in  any  abstract  way.  Enough  that  we  shall 
see  that  we  have  not  stated  the  fact  of  God  when 
we  have  named  one  of  His  attributes.  It  is  not 
to  be  much  wondered  at  that  men  have  taken  the 
great  saying  in  the  Epistle  of  John,  "God  is 
love,"  and  have  gathered  about  it,  as  though  it 
were  the  entire  fact  of  the  nature  of  God,  and  it 
is  not  to  be  much  wondered  at  that  they  have  re- 
versed it  at  times,  and  after  saying  "God  is 
love  M  have  sought  to  say  "  Love  is  God."  It  is 
the  fashion  of  one  of  the  reigning  cults  of  relig- 
ious thought,  to  say  "  God  is  good,"  and  then  to 
count  it  proof  that  "Good  is  God."  The 
scriptural  wording  that  "God  is  love"  is  too 
precious  to  be  even  discussed  now,  but  nowhere 
does  Scripture  suggest  that  "Love  is  God." 
Bather  it  does  say  that  love  is  of  God.  Love  is 
one  of  those  traits  which  God  manifests  but  it  is 
not  He.  God  is  good,  but  goodness  is  not  God. 
God  is  the  Person  who  manifests  the  traits.  In 
much  of  our  current  thinking  we  are  sacrificing 
this  assurance  of  the  personality  of  God  without 
realizing  it.  We  are  forgetting  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  love  a  God  who  is  not  personal,  and  that 
we  are  not  honouring  God  when  we  are  seeking 
to  make  Him  so  universal  in  the  world  that  He 
becomes  simply  a  principle  of  life,  or  that  He 


SINGLENESS  IN  WOBSHIP  39 

becomes  identified  with  men  whom  He  has 
cjreated  and  who  are  made  in  His  image.  God  is 
not  we,  and  we  are  not  God.  He  is  infinite,  per- 
sonal. "Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before 
Me." 

2.  The  second  implication  of  the  command- 
ment is  the  possibility  of  personal  connection  of 
God  with  men.  Many  a  man  believes  there  is  a 
God,  who  yet  has  no  place  for  Him  in  his  life. 
He  is  yonder,  not  here.  He  is  above,  not  on  the 
earth.  This  commandment  puts  upon  every  man 
the  obligation  to  hold  personal  relation  to  this 
personal  God.  The  pages  of  scripture  keep  before 
us  two  great  facts  of  the  relation  of  God  to  the 
world.  This  first,  that  He  is  transcendent  over 
the  earth,  that  He  is  not  of  the  earth,  that  it  is 
impious  and  irreverent  to  count  an  image  or  a 
figure,  or  even  a  place,  essential  to  Him.  He  is 
above  the  earth  and  beyond  it.  Yet  they  con- 
stantly impress  upon  us  that  He  is  within  the 
earth  and  all  about  us.  Our  hymn  says  it  none 
too  strongly,  u  On  mountains  or  in  valleys, 
where'er  we  go  is  God."  It  is  the  word  of  Job, 
that  if  we  ascend  up  to  heaven  He  is  there,  or  to 
the  bottommost  places  He  is  there.  If  we  take 
the  wings  of  the  morning  and  dwell  in  the  sun 
He  is  there.    He  is  all  about  us,  within  us  and 


40         THE  FIEST  COMMANDMENT 

around  us,  and  we  can  enter  into  constant  daily 
communion  with  Him  if  we  will.  We  are  losing 
vastly  more  than  we  think  when  we  forget  that 
He  is  near  about  us  and  is  concerned  with  the 
things  that  concern  us. 

3.  The  third  implication  of  the  commandment 
is  the  claim  of  God  upon  the  entire  devotion  of 
men.  He  does  not  divide  His  rights.  Jesus 
worded  it  for  us  in  saying,  "Ye  cannot  serve 
God  and  Mammon."  No  matter  whether  Mam- 
mon would  agree  to  it  or  not,  God  would  not ;  nor 
would  the  nature  of  man  agree  to  it.  The  inter- 
pretation which  Jesus  gives  to  the  first  command- 
ment is  familiar  :  ' '  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  aU  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and 
with  all  thy  mind."  Perhaps  you  are  familiar 
with  the  instance  in  the  early  life  of  Theodore 
Parker,  in  which  his  mother  taught  him  the 
great  lesson  by  which  he  sought  to  live.  He  was 
only  four  years  old,  and  was  going  past  a  pond. 
There  was  a  tortoise  sunning  itself  in  the  shal- 
low water  at  the  root  of  a  plant.  The  lad  lifted 
his  stick  to  strike  it  as  he  had  seen  other  boys  do. 
Something  within  him,  like  a  voice,  said,  "It  is 
wrong,"  and  stopped  his  arm.  He  hurried  home 
and  asked  his  mother  what  it  was.  She  replied, 
"Some  men  call  it  conscience,  but  I  prefer  to  call 


!/ 


SINGLENESS  IN  WOESHIP  41 

it  the  voice  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  Your  life 
depends  on  heeding  that  little  voice."  The  life 
of  the  race  depends  upon  heeding  that  voice, 
which  calls  to  absolute  obedience  and  to  entire 
devotion  to  Him. 

God  is  the  God  of  all  men,  but  any  man's  god 
is  that  which  he  puts  in  the  supreme  place  in  his 
life.  All  the  rights  are  in  God's  hands,  but  every 
man  must  concede  to  Him  the  right  over  his  own 
life.  You  may  call  that  deposed  man  yonder 
your  king,  but  unless  he  rules  he  is  not  your  king 
or  else  you  are  a  rebel.  The  apostle  words  it  for  us 
in  Eomans :  l  i  Know  ye  not  that  to  whom  ye  pre- 
sent yourselves  as  servants  unto  obedience,  his 
servants  ye  are  whom  ye  obey?"  Our  Lord 
worded  it  for  us,  "  Why  call  ye  Me,  Lord,  Lord, 
and  do  not  the  things  that  I  say  !  "  Even  though 
^  the  commandment  does  declare  the  right  of  God 
over  men  it  is  addressed  to  men  of  free  will. 
They  will  have  their  god  whether  they  have  the 
true  God  or  not  They  may  put  in  place  of  God 
something  that  will  rule  them.  It  is  because  that 
is  so  commonly  done  that  it  becomes  wise  for  us 
to  think  of  it 

Observe  then  the  peril  of  losing  God  in  self-as- 
sertion :  the  peril  of  letting  one's  self  occupy  the 
throne.     I    have  heard  much  said  against  the 


42  THE  FIEST  COMMANDMENT 

word  Self-control  or  Self-mastery.  It  has  been 
insisted  that  no  man  can  control  himself.  Well, 
the  word  may  not  be  altogether  happy.  The  fact 
is  perfectly  manifest ;  the  man  has  power  so  to  as- 
sert himself  that  the  things  which  other  men  are 
inclined  to  do  he  refuses  to  do,  whatever  the  in- 
ducements are.  He  has  the  power  to  set  himself 
with  good  or  bad  ambitions  on  the  throne  and 
control  everything  for  their  sakes.  He  has  power 
to  take  himself  as  a  standard,  and  so  to  assert 
himself  that  he  does  his  own  will  and  not  the  will 
of  another.  There  have  always  been  men  in 
common  life  who  felt  that  the  only  hope  for  the 
development  of  the  race  is  in  a  larger  measure  of 
self-assertion.  We  have  had  the  praises  of  in- 
dividuality sung  in  our  ears  until  the  melody  is 
familiar.  There  have  been  many  more  men  who 
have  asserted  themselves  without  any  theory  of 
life  and  while  still  holding  to  the  theory  of  the 
sovereignty  of  God.  Here  are  commandments  of 
God  which  we  do  not  altogether  like.  What  is 
our  argument  then  t  Not  that  they  are  not  good 
for  us  but  that  they  collide  with  certain  pleasures 
of  ours.  We  say  of  our  young  people,  You 
know  you  cannot  hold  them  in  with  reins ;  by 
which  we  mean  what?  Certainly  that  they  ex- 
pect to  assert  themselves,  for  if  you  say  "You 


SINGLENESS  IN  WOKSHIP  43 

must  not"  to  them,  when  they  want  a  certain 
thing,  they  expect  their  pleasure  or  their  desire 
to  have  right-of-way.  They  will  do  the  thing  in 
spite  of  you.  Suppose  you  say  to  them  that  God 
forbids  it.  Their  reply  is  that  surely  He  does  not 
forbid  it,  since  it  brings  them  such  pleasure. 
And  so  pleasure  takes  first  place.  We  come  to 
think  that  since  God  must  rejoice  in  the  happi- 
ness of  His  creatures,  our  pleasures  are  argument 
for  His  will,  forgetting  that  His  will  is  their  hope 
for  happiness,  instead. 

But  self-assertion  is  not  the  only  serious  viola- 
tion of  the  commandment.  It  sometimes  becomes 
a  philosophy  of  life.  Let  me  quote  four  lines 
which  constitute  the  whole  of  a  poem,  and  dis- 
cuss them  for  a  moment  with  you. 

"  I,  I,  I,  I  itself,  I, 
The  inside  and  outside,  the  what  and  the  why, 
The  when  and  the  where,  the  low  and  the  high. 
All  I,  I,  I,  I  itself,  I." 

Where  did  I  find  that,  do  you  suppose  f  If  you 
had  quoted  it  to  me  I  would  have  supposed  that 
you  had  charged  your  memory  with  lines  from  a 
humorous  column,  or  a  take-off  on  some  great 
poet,  or  some  arch  egotist  I  might  have  counted 
it  something  from  Walt  Whitman,  or  Nietzche, 


44         THE  FIEST  COMMANDMENT 

who  stood  so  for  the  assertion  of  self.  I  found  it 
in  no  such  place.  These  lines  with  their  ten 
staring  capital  Fs  are  the  motto  verse  of  the  text 
book  of  "Science  and  Health,  with  Key  to  the 
Scriptures,"  of  one  of  our  reigning  religious 
fads.  They  embody  the  philosophy  of  the  whole 
book.  With  many  nominal  assertions  of  the 
sovereignty  of  God,  there  is  yet  that  constant  as- 
sertion of  the  sovereignty  of  self.  There  is  a  con- 
stant seeking  after  the  very  thing  which  the 
sovereign  God  graciously  forbade  men,  that  they 
should  sometime  become  as  gods.  We  are  reap- 
ing the  harvest  of  such  philosophy.  Coming 
generations  shall  reap  it  more  seriously  still. 
Such  philosophy  of  life  is  the  most  ominous, 
perilous  and  ruinous  philosophy  that  can  be 
taught.  The  whole  logic  of  it  is  to  take  from  us 
our  assurance  of  the  unique  rights  of  God  in  its 
very  claim  to  bring  us  to  God.  And  the  most 
ominous  and  perilous  part  of  it  is  that  Christian 
people  accept  it,  reading  into  it  their  own  mean- 
ings, and  sow  the  seed  for  the  ruin  of  generations 
not  buttressed  and  protected  as  they  are  by  the 
great  truths  of  the  teaching  of  Christ.  For  mark 
this  carefully,  there  is  no  one  who  holds  this  faith 
who  is  in  proper  sense  a  product  of  it.  It  has  not 
existed  long  enough  to  be  judged  by  its  fruits. 


SINGLENESS  IN  WOESHIP  45 

Of  itself  it  has  none.  All  of  those  who  hold  it 
are  the  products  of  the  great  faith  which  they 
have  carried  with  them,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously. There  has  been  no  second  generation,  no 
third  generation.  We  shall  not  know  its  errors 
in  practice  until  there  comes  a  generation  which 
is  true  to  its  logic,  as  no  man  of  our  generation 
can  be.  We  are  not  God  and  God  is  not  we. 
Nor  will  either  ever  become  the  other.  And  as 
was  pointed  out  in  the  earlier  study  that  we  are 
reaping  the  harvest  of  an  earlier  generation  of  a 
false  philosophy,  lightly  and  easily  accepted,  be- 
cause it  was  attractive  at  first  sight,  so  now  it  is 
urged  that  a  later  generation  will  reap  the  harvest 
of  the  sowing  of  such  doctrine  as  this  I  am  com- 
batting, from  which  this  generation  is  well 
enough  guarded  to  escape.  When  self-assertion 
leads  us  to  meet  our  sin,  or  weakness,  or  sick- 
ness, with  the  declaration  of  our  oneness  with 
God,  we  shall  soon  lose  God  in  ourselves,  even 
though  with  our  earlier  Christian  trainiug  we  may 
talk  of  finding  ourselves  in  Him  instead. 

Note  then  the  second  peril — of  losing  God  in 
thi ngs.  It  is  what  Jesus  meant,  1 1  Ye  cannot  serve 
God  and  Mammon."  Mammon  was  the  Syrian 
god  of  riches.  He  is  the  god  of  money.  It 
needs  few  words  to  make  any  man  feel  that  we 


-3 


46  THE  FIRST  COMMANDMENT 

are  now  touching  on  the  grave  peril  of  our  com- 
mercial life.  It  is  amazing  to  what  lengths  a 
man  will  go  to  get  and  to  keep  money.  It  grips 
him  so  that  he  no  longer  has  control  over  himself, 
nor  yields  the  control  to  anything  higher.  Bus- 
kin illustrated  it  to  the  working  men  of  England 
by  his  story  of  a  wreck  in  California  Bay.  The 
miner  had  started  for  his  home,  possessor  of  large 
wealth.  He  had  turned  it  all  into  gold,  and  had 
it  in  his  belt  rivetted  about  him  so  that  it  might 
not  be  taken  from  him.  When  the  wreck  oc- 
curred he  could  not  release  himself  from  the  belt 
of  gold,  and  was  carried  by  its  weight  to  his 
death.  "Now,"  said  Buskin,  "did  he  have  the 
gold  or  did  the  gold  have  him  V9  It  is  always  a 
fine  thing  when  a  man  has  a  million  dollars,  be- 
cause there  is  hope  that  he  may  use  it ;  but  when 
the  tables  are  turned,  and  the  million  dollars,  or 
the  hundred  dollars,  have  the  man,  then  there  is 
the  saddest  of  tragedies.  Money  will  never  use  a 
man  well.  It  will  drive  him  to  his  death.  It 
will  never  give  him  joy  while  it  is  controlling. 
If  he  has  it,  and  uses  it,  counting  it  his  servant, 
and  able  to  recognize  God  as  his  King  before 
him,  then  it  may  be  a  blessing  to  him. 

Some  readers  will  remember  Dr.  Edward  A. 
Washburn.     He   waa   once   rector    of  Calvary 


SINGLENESS  IN  WOESHEP  47 

Church  in  Manhattan.  Once  he  had  occasion  to 
use  what  seems  to  me  a  very  striking  illustration 
in  response  to  the  question,  u  Who  is  the  god  of 
the  men  of  New  York  t "  He  imagined  a  visitor 
from  ancient  Athens  coming  here  and  asking 
where  he  would  find  the  temple  of  the  Great  God 
of  the  City.  Answering  the  inquiry  of  the  vis- 
itor, his  friend  takes  him  to  a  beautiful  old  build- 
ing, with  a  most  graceful  spire,  and  in  which  is 
a  beautiful  service.  It  stands  at  the  head  of  a 
narrow  street,  on  one  of  the  busiest  thorough- 
fares of  the  city.  After  he  has  admired  the  ex- 
terior beauty  he  goes  inside.  The  daily  service 
is  in  progress.  There  are  present  a  few  people ; 
most  of  them  manifestly  sightseers  who  roam 
about  through  the  building,  looking  upon  it  curi- 
ously. He  is  told  that  this  is  the  temple  of  the 
God  in  whom  we  trust.  He  wonders  at  the  ab- 
sence of  worshippers.  Afterwards  he  goes  out 
and  finds  his  way  down  that  narrow  street  till  he 
comes  to  a  great  white  building,  up  whose  stairs 
men  are  going  in  eager  haste,  down  whose  stairs 
men  are  coming,  equally  eager  on  errands  which 
seem  connected  with  their  interests.  He  goes  to 
the  main  hall  of  that  building  and  there  finds 
wild  excitement.  Men  are  rushing  here  and 
there.     Messengers  are  being  speeded  on  errands, 


48  THE  FIRST  COMMANDMENT 

There  is  manifest  keen  interest  in  everything  that 
is  going  on.  Dr.  Washburn  says  that  no  intelli- 
gent visitor  could  fail  to  say  that  here  is  the  real 
temple  of  the  greatest  god  of  the  city  of  New 
York.  We  understand  each  other  about  it,  do 
we  not  ?  It  is  only  to  quote  what  is  often  said, 
that  the  great  race  of  thousands  of  men  to-day  is 
after  money.  At  first  is  the  thought  of  things 
that  money  can  do.  We  want  comforts  for  our 
home  and  our  family.  We  want  to  be  able  to  do 
the  things  that  others  can  do.  Indeed,  we  want  to 
serve  our  fellows :  we  want  to  help  our  fellow 
men.  So  far  the  desire  is  subservient  to  our- 
selves. We  are  masters  over  it,  and  God  might 
be  King  over  all.  But  there  comes  a  time  when 
those  laws  which  we  know  ought  to  govern  life 
seem  restrictive,  and  we  are  willing  to  throw  them 
off  for  the  sake  of  gaining  ends.  There  is  enough 
to  sadden  any  man  in  the  evidence  of  that  feeling 
in  the  minds  of  some  of  the  men  most  reputable 
in  the  community,  as  recent  disclosures  have  re- 
vealed. We  are  not  pretending  that  money  is 
not  mighty.  It  is.  We  are  only  urging  that  it 
is  not  almighty.  There  are  some  things  that 
cannot  be  bought.  No  man  can  violate  the  law 
of  God  in  gaining  his  money,  and  win  for  him- 
self the  favor  of  God  by  the  use  of  his  money 


SINGLENESS  IN  WORSHIP  49 

afterwards.     It  is  possible  to  this  day  for  a  man 
to  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  himself. 

But  God  is  lost  also  for  very  many  of  us  in  our 
study  of  the  things  of  God  without  our  seeing  Him, 
going  our  way  through  our  lives  with  no  thought 
of  Him,  even  though  we  are  dealing  with  the 
things  which  He  has  made.  "The  undevout 
astronomer  is  mad"  j  the  man  who  looks  at  the 
stars  has  left  God  out  unless  he  is  able  to  say,  u  I 
think  Thy  thoughts  after  Thee,  O  God." 

Then  note  the  third  peril — of  losing  God  in 

popular  estimates,  putting  the  opinion  either  of 

the  public  or  of  a  small  circle  of  men  before 

thought  of  God,  until  one  is  worshipping  not  God 

f  in  the  heaven  but  the  opinions  of  one's  fellows 

i  on  the  earth.     When  we  come  to  our  study  of  the 

^y  ^Jburth  commandment,  we  will  have  occasion  to 

^*    remark  how  the  Sabbath  is  imperiled  by  the  in- 

\         crease  of  its  use  as  a  social  day.     There  are  those 

^         who  have  fallen  into  that  habit  who  know  that  it 

w         is  wrong,  but  who  find  it  so  common  about  them 

that  they  cannot  resist  it     Here  are  families  who 

have  moved  into  the  city,  bringing  with  them 

their  ideas  of  God's  will.     Those  ideas  have  not 

changed,  God's  will  has  not  changed,  and  yet 

their  conduct  is  entirely  altered.    They  do  to-day 

the  things  they  would  never  have  thought  of 


J 


50         THE  FIEST  COMMANDMENT 

doing.  They  spend  the  Sabbath  in  ways  which 
they  have  no  dream  of  His  approving.  They 
practice  pleasures  or  customs  which  they  do  not 
find  in  His  will.  They  have  done  it  because  He 
has  been  crowded  off  the  throne  of  their  lives. 
The  people  whom  they  know  do  it.  They  cannot 
bear  to  be  peculiar.  They  cannot  bear  to  set 
themselves  against  a  popular  movement,  even 
though  they  feel  it  is  not  a  divine  movement  The 
whole  question  of  amusement  and  of  conduct  will 
be  settled  for  us  if  every  one  honestly  sought  to 
find  what  God's  will  for  him  is.  We  might  not 
agree  with  the  conclusion,  and  yet  there  would 
be  no  peril  for  any  life  in  any  amusement  which 
accepted  that  amusement  as  part  of  God's  will  for 
it.  If  we  honestly  sought  His  will  continually, 
we  might  do  things  in  our  eagerness  which  were 
wrong,  but  we  would  soon  be  led  out  of  that  ig- 
norance into  a  wiser  way.  Therein  lies  the  peril 
of  evil  companionship.  In  the  theory  of  it  there 
should  be  no  danger  for  a  clean-hearted  man  who 
honours  God,  and  keeps  God  before  him  as  Mas- 
ter and  Lord,  in  going  into  the  darkest  places  of 
iniquity.  You  know  without  more  than  saying  it 
how  easy  it  is  for  the  desires  of  a  man's  life  to  rise 
up  and  take  their  places  of  authority  over  against 
his  knowledge  of  the  will  of  God.    Many  of  us  have 


SINGLENESS  IN  WOKSHIP  51 

lost  God  in  the  crowd.  We  have  become  deaf  to 
the  voice  of  His  will  by  reason  of  the  clamour  of 
public  opinion  and  popular  movement.  We  have 
gone  into  small  circles  of  men  whose  opinions 
have  quietly  and  unnoticedly  modified  our  own 
until  we  do  the  thing  now  that  we  would  not  have 
thought  of  doing  awhile  ago. 

And  all  these  perils  of  losing  God  become  the 

sadder  when  we  realize  how  much  we  lose  in  our 

loss  of  Him.     How  can  we  have  another  god 

when  we  have  Him  f    There  is  no  one  who  can 

do  for  our  lives  what  He  can  do.     There  is  no 

one  in  whom  we  can  so  fulfill  ourselves  as  in  Him. 

There  is  no  one  with  whom  we  can  come  into 

contact  of  obedience  who  will  so  develop  all  in  us 

that  is  worth  the  developing,  and  so  burn  out 

^  £  from  us  all  that  should  be  taken  away  from  us. 

y*>  When  the  knights  came  to  King  Arthur  there 

^^     *  passed  over  their  faces  a  momentary  likeness  of 

^   \Q$heir  king.     As  they  remained  with  him  they 

took  on  the  very  expression  of  his  face,  and  it 

became  a  fixed  characteristic.     When  a  man  has 

once   found  the  will  of  God,  and   has  set  out 

to  fulfill  it,  subordinating   his  own    pleasures, 

subordinating   all  opinions  to  it,  it  is  then  he 

has   found   life   meaning    most,   and   its  ideals 

seeming  most  practical  and  real.     It  is  in  the 


j 
> 


* 


52  THE  FIEST  COMMANDMENT 

large  way  what  Lanier  said  to  Browning,  that 
in  his  presence  the  best  of  him  was  always 
brought  out.  He  makes  the  most  of  us.  Queen 
Elizabeth  broke  the  mirror  on  seeing  her  gray 
hairs  and  furrowed  face.  Our  knowledge  of  God 
in  Jesus  Christ  reveals  to  us  the  defects  and 
weaknesses  of  our  lives,  and  yet  reveals  to  us  also 
the  possibilities  of  life,  so  that  we  never  know 
until  we  see  Him  what  we  are  nor  what  we  can 
become.  We  are  sacrificing  immeasurably  when 
we  have  any  other  god  before  Him. 

But  for  us  a  finer  fact  than  that  is  that  there  is 
no  one  for  whom  we  can  do  as  much  as  we  can  do 
for  Him.  There  is  no  one  whose  projects  are  as 
large  as  His.  There  is  no  one  whose  plan  for  the 
work  of  the  world  is  so  splendid  and  inspiring  as 
His.  There  opens  before  us,  as  we  acknowledge 
His  right  over  us,  the  splendid  service  of 
the  conquest  of  the  whole  world,  the  bringing  of 
the  whole  earth  to  submission  to  Him,  the  re- 
deeming of  the  whole  world  from  the  thralldom 
of  sin  and  the  bondage  of  selfishness,  until  He 
becomes  King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of  Lords,  until 
He  reigns  over  the  whole  world,  which  has  known 
many  other  lords,  but  never  has  known  one  who 
could  be  Father  and  Eedeemer  and  Lover  as  can 
He.     Turning  aside  and  serving  any  other  God, 


i 


SINGLENESS  IN  WORSHIP  53 

putting  any  other  interest  foremost  in  life,  is 
wasting  life,  is  throwing  away  that  which  might 
be  used  for  the  greatest  purposes  of  which  man- 
kind can  conceive. 


3 


m 

SPIRITUALITY  IN  WORSHIP 
{The  Second  Commandment) 

Thou  shalt  not  make  unto  thee  any  graven  image,  or  any  likeness 
of  anything  that  is  in  the  heaven  above,  or  that  is  in  the  earth 
beneath,  or  that  is  in  the  water  under  the  earth ;  thou  shatt 
not  bow  down  thyself  unto  them  nor  serve  them,  for  I  the  Lord 
thy  God  am  a  jealous  Ood,  visiting  the  iniquities  of  the  fathers 
upon  the  children,  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation  of 
them  that  hate  Me,  and  showing  mercy  unto  thousands  of  them 
that  love  Me  and  keep  My  commandments. — Exodus  20  : 4-6. 

The  first  and  second  commandments  are  to  be 
kept  together,  covering  different  phases  of  the 
same  duty.  The  first  commands  singleness  of 
worship.  The  second  commands  spirituality  in 
worship.  The  first  tells  us  whom  we  are  to  wor- 
ship, the  second  tells  how  we  are  to  worship  Him. 
The  first  forbids  putting  anything  in  the  place  of 
God ;  the  second  forbids  putting  anything  between 
us  and  Him.  It  would  be  possible  to  break  either 
commandment  and  keep  the  other. 

No  man  needs  a  divine  command  to  worship. 

He  will  do  that  without  command.     But  he  needs 

his  instinct  of  worship  divinely  regulated.     Even 

Voltaire  prayed  in  an  Alpine  thunder-storm,  and 

64 


SPIRITUALITY  IN  WOESHIP  55 

Herbert  Spencer  speaks  with  awe  and  reverence 
of  the  Unknowable  Force.  We  all  worship,  but 
we  may  worship  other  than  the  true  God  and  we 
may  worship  Him  unworthily. 

The  second  commandment  comprises  a  com- 
mand and  an  explanation  in  two  parts.  The 
command  forbids  the  worship  of  God  unworthily, 
the  explanation  is  that  God  is  jealous  for  His  own 
glory  and  for  our  good. 

I.  Critics  of  Moses  are  fond  of  saying  that  the 
commandment  means  the  death  of  art.  Of 
course  it  does  not.  The  tabernacle  was  decorated 
as  beautifully  as  Israel's  skill  permitted.  The 
temple  was  ornamented  with  figures  of  trees, 
flowers,  pomegranates,  and  the  mystical  cheru- 
bim, winged  oxen.  Sculpture,  painting,  all  the 
arts  find  their  perfection  in  worship.  Even  the 
catacombs  in  Eome  are  marked  with  rudely 
drawn  symbols  that  stood  for  great  hopes  of  the 
early  Christians.  The  Mohammedans  interpreted 
the  command  as  though  it  forbade  all  forms  of 
art  in  connection  with  worship,  and  their  mosques 
are  always  barren  of  picture  or  statue.  The  early 
Christian  church  was  surrounded  with  the  sym- 
bols of  idolatry,  images  and  paintings  which 
were  objects  of  veneration  and  worship.  Very 
wisely  they  forbade  any  such  decorations  in  their 


56        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

churches,  but  they  encouraged  art  in  every  way 
in  their  power.  The  effect  of  the  gospel  of 
Christ  on  art  is  too  evident  to  discuss.  The 
greatest  paintings,  the  greatest  works  of  sculp- 
ture, the  greatest  music — all  these  are  predomi- 
nantly religious  in  their  purposes.  This  com- 
mand puts  no  ban  on  art. 

At  first  reading  it  simply  forbids  worshipping 
an  image  of  God.  That  seems  easy  to  obey. 
Idolatry  is  coarse  and  out  of  date.  We  enjoy  the 
sarcasm  of  Isaiah,  when  he  describes  the  making 
of  an  idol :  the  blacksmith  toiling  with  his  ham- 
mer and  forge  and  anvil,  in  the  effort  to  get  his 
god  broad-based  enough  to  stand  without  falling 
over  j  the  mason  carefully  drawing  lines  by 
which  he  may  build  a  god  that  will  not  be  out 
of  plumb ;  as  a  climax  the  carpenter  in  his 
kitchen  working  over  his  log,  one-half  of  it  made 
into  an  idol  which  he  worships,  the  other  half 
placed  in  the  fire  to  warm  himself  !  That  is  the 
sarcasm  with  which  we  like  to  deal  with  idolatry. 
But  idolatry  is  not  always  so  coarse  as  that. 
There  are  thoughtful  men  even  among  idolaters, 
and  they  have  no  notion  that  their  image  is  God. 
It  only  represents  Him,  as  your  photograph  rep- 
resents you  to  those  who  love  you.  They  speak 
of  it  as  though  it  were  yourself,  may  even  speak 


SPIKITUALITY  IN  WOESHIP         57 

to  it,  call  it  by  endearing  names,  and  all  that,  but 
they  do  not  mistake  it  for  yourself.  Or  else  the 
idol  is  a  figure  which  selects  some  one  attribute 
of  God  which  men  need  to  remember  and  concen- 
trates thought  upon  it.  Here  is  an  idol  from 
Ceylon.  It  has  awful  staring  eyes,  a  long  tongue 
protruding  from  the  mouth  and  dripping  with 
blood,  in  one  hand  flashes  a  keen-edged  knife,  in 
another  it  holds  the  bleeding  head  of  a  victim,  its 
feet  rest  on  the  beheaded  body,  and  its  neck  is 
ornamented  with  a  necklace  of  grinning  skulls. 
It  is  the  god  of  vengeance,  of  punishment,  of 
wrath,  isolating  for  your  thought  that  one  attri- 
bute of  God.  Other  idols  represent  other  attri- 
butes of  God,  their  believers  say.  And  at  any 
rate,  they  tell  us,  you  know  it  is  easy  for  your 
mind  to  wander  when  you  ought  to  be  thinking  of 
spiritual  things.  The  image  serves  to  concentrate 
your  attention.  Of  course  there  will  be  foolish 
people  who  will  identify  these  images  with  God 
Himself,  and  will  worship  the  image,  but  that  is 
incidental  to  ignorance.  That  is  not  necessary. 
It  is  intended  to  worship  God  through  the  image, 
not  in  it.  Indeed  ' '  in  the  history  of  Greece  there 
was  a  distinct  ceremony  whereby  a  god  was  in- 
ducted into  the  image  which  he  was  to  occupy." 
Until  he  took  up  his  abode  there,  the  image  was 


58        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

not  sacred,  it  was  wood  or  stone  j  after  the  cere- 
mony, it  became  sacred. 

It  is  in  such  ways  that  even  the  grossest 
idolatry  has  been  defended  from  the  beginning. 
Our  visitors  from  India  who  would  teach  the 
errors  of  the  Christian  way  use  that  argument 
with  us  still.  And  yet  the  second  commandment 
stands  forbidding  just  that.  We  are  to  have  no 
images  that  represent  God  to  us.  We  are  to 
make  no  effort  to  bring  Him  into  shape  or  form 
before  us. 

Partly  that  is  because  of  the  danger  that  the 
image  will  take  His  place  and  we  will  worship  it 
in  spite  of  our  theory  that  it  is  not  God.  The  ar- 
guments I  have  just  worded  were  those  of  Jero- 
boam when  he  established  the  two  calves  at  Dan 
and  Bethel.  The  people  became  calf- worshippers 
quite  against  his  will.  But  partly  it  is  because 
any  such  conception  of  God  is  inherently  degrad- 
ing to  Him.  God  is  pure  Spirit ;  He  has  not 
body  nor  parts  as  we  have,  nor  as  images  must 
have,  and  any  effort  to  bring  His  glory  and  per- 
fection into  physical  form  is  essentially  and 
necessarily  degrading.  We  will  inevitably  bring 
our  loftiest  conception  down  towards  the  level  of 
the  representation  we  make  of  Him. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  various  at- 


SPIEITTJALITY  IN  WOKSHIP         59 

tempts  to  realize  God  in  some  definite  form. 
Animate  and  inanimate  things  have  been  deified. 
A  pastor  one  day  ran  across  the  name  of  a  mem- 
ber of  his  church  whom  he  had  never  met.  He 
called  at  her  house  and  found  her  with  all  her 
family  now  members  of  a  sect  of  sun- worshippers, 
which  she  told  him  had  become  quite  strong  in 
the  city.  They  have  full  rites  and  ceremonies. 
A  few  years  ago  a  gentleman  read  to  me  what  he 
counted  a  beautiful  rhapsody  to  the  most  benefi- 
cent power  in  all  the  universe,  a  rhapsody  ad- 
dressed in  most  reverent  terms — you  would  think 
it  a  psalm  of  praise  to  most  high  God  if  you 
simply  overheard  it.  But  it  was  a  hymn  of 
praise  to  the  attraction  of  gravitation.  At  times 
it  seems  that  we  are  eager  to  worship  anything 
except  Him  who  alone  is  worthy  of  worship. 

But  the  command  goes  deeper  still.  It  touches 
the  whole  matter  of  our  relation  to  God.  It 
means  to  forbid  our  having  anything  between 
ourselves  and  Him.  We  are  to  come  to  Him 
directly,  not  through  an  intermediary.  We  need 
nothing  to  make  Him  more  real  to  us,  if  we  seek 
His  face.  Anything  that  stands  for  God  to  us 
violates  the  command.  Some  of  us  are  in  danger 
of  putting  the  minister  or  the  priest  in  the  place 
of  God.    We  feel  that  he  has  some  peculiar  rela- 


60        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

tion  to  God  and  that  we  can  get  to  God  better 
through  him.  Or  we  take  a  ceremony,  like 
baptism  or  the  Lord's  Supper,  or  even  the  whole 
worship  of  the  church,  and  feel  that  it  has  in 
itself  some  goodness  or  some  spiritual  worth.  "We 
come  to  worship  the  sacrament,  instead  of  God. 
In  my  mission  calling  in  New  York  I  found  a 
woman,  not  ignorant  nor  poverty  stricken,  who 
had  in  a  little  glass  vessel  on  her  mantel  a  bit  of 
the  communion  bread  of  the  last  sacrament  she 
had  attended,  which  she  venerated  with  such  de- 
votion as  she  owes  to  the  Master  for  whose  life  it 
stood. 

A  certain  amount  of  form  in  service  is  helpful 
to  many  men,  but  forms  are  always  perilous. 
They  are  so  easily  lifted  into  a  place  of  importance 
which  they  do  not  deserve.  A  minister  said  a 
while  ago  that  it  was  as  important  to  salvation  to 
be  baptized  as  to  believe  in  Christ  at  all.  He 
added  his  belief  that  the  creed  had  not  been  re- 
peated in  proper  sense  unless  the  speakers  bowed 
their  heads  at  the  proper  place  in  the  repetition. 
That  is  the  absurd  extreme,  but  it  suggests  the 
danger  of  all  ritual.  There  are  men  who  always 
seek  to  go  to  God  through  a  minister  or  a  priest. 
A  woman  intelligent  in  most  things  told  me  only 
the  other  day  that  in  her  thought  the  minister 


SPIBITTJALITY  IN  WOESHIP         61 

represents  God  among  men.  For  my  own  part,  I 
distinctly  claim  any  such  dignity  save  as  it  be- 
longs to  all  Christians.  There  is  no  peculiar 
sanctity  about  a  minister  or  a  priest  that  gives 
him  special  access  to  God  so  that  the  humblest 
member  of  the  body  of  Christ  may  not  come  to 
God  with  just  as  great  ease  and  with  just  as  much 
hope  of  acceptance.  And  there  is  no  ceremony, 
nor  sacrament,  nor  ritual  which  a  man  needs  in  or- 
der to  reach  God.  In  connection  with  this  second 
commandment  there  was  given  a  special  ritual, 
but  with  the  coming  of  Jesus  it  was  ended.  The 
veil  was  taken  away ;  it  has  not  been  re-hung. 
The  way  to  God  is  direct — no  image,  no  man,  no 
method,  no  symbol,  no  sacrifice,  no  sacrament, 
nothing  is  between  any  man  and  his  God.  That 
is  the  whole  spirit  of  the  command. 

There  is  a  growing  tendency  in  the  church  to 
observe  times  and  ceremonies.  Services  are  in- 
cluding more  of  form  than  they  once  had.  We 
hear  more  about  Good  Friday,  and  Easter,  and 
Christmas,  and  Holy  Week.  There  is  room  for 
all  this.  But  there  is  room  also  for  a  very  definite 
note  of  warning.  There  is  danger  in  all  this. 
There  is  danger  of  a  formalism  that  will  take  the 
heart  out  of  our  religion.  We  have  distinctly 
suffered  from  the  wide-spread  use  of  the  crucifix 


62       THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

as  symbol  of  our  faith.  I  know  we  have  beauti- 
fied it.  We  have  gift  cards  with  the  cross  hid 
in  flowers  and  gilded  quite  dazzlingly.  Yes,  but 
that  has  centred  our  thought  on  one  aspect  of  the 
religion  which  we  profess.  It  is  a  religion  of  the 
death  of  Christ,  but  it  is  a  religion  of  His  tri- 
umphant victory  over  death  and  His  present 
reign  over  the  hearts  of  men.  And  we  are  in 
danger  of  magnifying  the  history  of  our  Lord  as  a 
part  of  human  history  so  that  its  large  and  present 
meaning  is  forgotten.  The  faith  of  Christ, 
grounded  in  history  as  it  is,  is  yet  not  a  religion 
of  history,  but  of  present  power  and  of  future 
glory.  It  is  the  assurance  of  a  present  Christ 
that  brings  victory.  The  tendency  of  all  times 
and  seasons  is  to  hold  our  minds  to  them  as 
though  they  comprised  the  only  time  of  our  duty. 
We  use  Lent  as  a  general  spiritual  house-clean- 
ing time.  Very  well,  let  it  be  so,  but  let  every 
man  see  to  it  that  the  daily  cleansing  occurs. 
There  are  people  so  impressed  with  the  value  of 
that  season  that  they  serve  the  devil  with  great 
vigour  three  hundred  and  twenty-five  days  of  the 
year  and  try  to  crowd  their  regard  for  God  into 
the  forty  that  are  left.  Into  that  danger  we  have 
not  fallen  but  to  it  we  all  tend  in  these  special  ob- 
servances.    So  with  the  formalism  of  our  service. 


SPmiTTJALITY  IN  WOESHIP         63 

It  has  a  good  place,  but  it  brings  with  it  a  danger. 
The  worship  of  God  is  spiritual.  We  might 
read  services  in  the  church  by  the  hour,  might 
undertake  devotions  that  would  wear  our  bodies 
out,  and  not  please  God  so  well  as  the  man  who 
goes  steadily  on  to  his  toil,  and  remembers  God 
in  the  rush  of  his  busy  day.  God  is  Spirit,  and 
anything  that  helps  us  to  forget  that  He  is  so,  is 
big  with  danger.  Against  it  the  second  com- 
mandment stands  as  the  protest  of  God. 

Two  things,  then,  the  commandment  seems  to 
mean  for  our  present  day :  First,  Let  nothing 
come  between  your  soul  and  God.  Go  to  Him 
directly,  through  form  and  ceremony  and  symbol 
or  without  them.  Let  nothing  assert  its  right  to 
intercept  your  soul  on  its  way  to  God.  And  this 
secondly,  Keep  your  worship  of  God  spiritual. 
Do  not  drag  God  down  to  any  image,  or  any 
service,  or  any  place.  Let  your  soul  meet  Him 
as  soul  meets  soul.  Give  over  trying  to  bring 
Him  within  your  comprehension.  End  the  effort 
to  make  Him  real  to  you  in  any  physical  sense. 
He  is  above  all  of  that     This  is  the  command. 

IL  The  explanation  of  it  is  a  double  one.  It 
is  given  because  God  is  jealous  for  His  own  glory 
and  for  our  good.  You  do  not  need  me  to  remind 
you  that  in  all  our  teaching  of  God  we  are  com- 


64        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

pelled  to  use  the  language  of  men.  The  jealousy 
of  God  is  not  the  mean  jealousy  of  men  who  feel 
that  some  one  else  is  receiving  attention  which 
they  ought  to  receive.  It  is  not  the  jealousy  of 
pique  and  selfishness.  It  is  the  j  ealousy  of  a  high 
minded  regard  for  interests  too  sacred  to  be  neg- 
lected. You  catch  a  faint  human  glimpse  of  it  in 
the  refusal  of  Washington  to  receive  from  the 
British  commander  the  note  addressed  to  him  as 
Mr.  George  Washington,  when  he  should  have 
been  reckoned  the  general-in-chief  of  the  Ameri- 
can forces.  In  infinite  measure  such  is  the 
jealousy  of  God — a  high  minded  regard  for  in- 
terests which  may  be  neglected  only  at  cost  of 
JN  honour. 

When  President  McKinley  was  assassinated, 
there  was  loud  protest  in  the  land  against  the 
custom  of  some  of  our  lesser  papers  to  travesty 
every  act  of  the  President  in  cartoons  which 
brought  him  into  contempt.  The  practice  was 
for  the  time  largely  abandoned.  But  the  Ameri- 
can people  were  right  in  their  protests.  Such  rep- 
resentations always  conduce  to  lack  of  reverence 
and  regard  for  the  caricatured  man.  Now,  that 
is  the  principle  at  stake  in  every  representation 
of  God.  It  degrades  Him,  let  it  be  never  so  fine. 
The  heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain  Him.    He 


SPIEITUALITY  IN  WOESHEP         66 

is  most  holy  and  august  and  immeasurably  above 
the  earth  in  which  we  dwell.  How  can  it  be 
other  than  a  degradation  to  Him  to  have  us  make 
our  little  images  of  Him,  or  our  little  pictures  of 
Him?  That  was  Paul's  argument  on  Mars'  Hill 
— We  are  made  by  Him  and  we  are  better  than 
silver  and  gold,  how  then  can  we  image  Him  as 
silver  or  gold  or  anything  else  without  humiliat- 
ing Him  ?  You  degrade  the  idea  of  God  if  you 
tell  me  I  must  do  this  little  thing  or  that  little 
thing  in  order  to  serve  Him  aright ;  I  must  bow 
my  head  here  and  my  knee  there,  I  must  say  this 
prayer  or  follow  this  rubric,  or  practice  this 
ceremony,  or  I  am  wrong  in  His  sight.  You 
bring  Him  down  if  you  say  it — bring  Him  down 
as  the  idolater  brings  Him  down  when  he  seeks  to 
cramp  His  infinite  majesty  into  an  image.  There 
must  be  something  deeper  and  greater  and  nobler 
than  all  this  which  shall  reveal  Him  to  my  soul. 
Against  any  such  pettiness  the  jealousy  of  God  is 
directed. 

Here  is  jealousy  for  His  whole  character. 
However  great  or  fine  your  image,  it  presents 
only  one  phase  of  the  character  of  God. 
Whether  it  be  the  hideous  image  of  Ceylon,  rep- 
resenting His  vengeance,  or  the  immense  figure 
of  the  Buddha  in  Japan  to  represent  His  majesty, 


66        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

or  the  image  of  solid  gold  with  silver  trappings 
in  India  to  represent  His  riches,  or  even  the  cru- 
cifix of  the  humble  Christian  worshipper  to  repre- 
sent His  sacrificial  love,  it  is  all  partial.  In  none 
of  them  alone,  nor  in  all  of  them  combined  do 
you  see  His  whole,  full-orbed  Being.  They  are 
all  narrow  and  partial,  and  they  all  leave  us  with 
one-sided  views  of  Him.  Even  we  petty  men, 
without  resentment  that  may  be  blamed,  are  of- 
fended at  such  representations  of  ourselves  as 
leave  unnoted  the  best  parts  of  our  work  and 
service.  It  is  as  though  in  coming  years  the 
statesman  whose  death  we  mourned  but  now,  who 
has  made  America  great  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation, 
were  to  be  known  as  the  author  of  some  nursery 
rhyme  and  nothing  else.  In  the  image  the  wor- 
shipper substitutes  the  attribute  for  God. 

Need  I  remind  you  that  there  are  prevailing 
tendencies  to  do  so  to  this  day  ?  Few  of  our  re- 
ligious notions  of  the  day  present  us  with  a  well- 
rounded  view  of  God.  This  attribute  or  that  is 
singled  out  and  taken  as  symbol  and  sufficient 
representation  of  Him.  We  lose  Him  in  His  at- 
tributes. We  are  asked,  "Is  not  God  good?" 
And  we  answer  eagerly,  "Yes,  unspeakably 
good."  Then  our  inquirer  seeks  to  make  us  say, 
"Good  is  God,"  and  we  draw  back.     We  are  not 


SPIRITUALITY  IN  WORSHIP         67 

ready  to  set  an  attribute  of  God  in  place  of  God. 
He  is  good  because  He  is  God,  but  He  is  not 
goodness  alone.  Another  would  have  us  say  that 
He  is  love,  and  gladly  we  say  it.  But  nowhere  in 
the  word  of  God  is  it  said  that  love  is  God. 
Rather  is  it  said  that  love  is  of  God.  If  you 
mean  to  define  Him,  then  He  is  most  loving  and 
most  holy  and  most  good,  but  through  it  all  He 
is  God,  an  infinite,  eternal  and  unchangeable 
Spirit  There  are  I  know  not  how  many  cults  in 
our  own  day  which  are  bidding  us  develop  God 
within  ourselves.  No  two  agree  as  to  the  way  of 
doing  it,  and  it  is  well  they  cannot,  lest  we  should 
seek  to  do  so  unworthy  and  impossible  a  thing. 
The  very  wording  of  it,  once  we  understood  it, 
would  approach  blasphemy.  God  is  not  one  to  be 
developed  within  us  or  elsewhere.  He  is  always 
the  existent  God,  whose  rays  of  beauty  we  catch 
from  time  to  time  in  His  revelation  of  Himself  to 
men.  We  know  His  attributes,  the  traits  that 
mark  Him,  but  they  are  not  He,  and  no  develop- 
ing of  those  traits  within  us  will  ever  make  us 
God.  Scripture  holds  it  before  us  as  a  great  cer- 
tainty that  through  Jesus  Christ  we  shall  become 
like  Him,  our  Elder  Brother,  and  so  come  into  the 
lost  image  of  God  again,  but  it  nowhere  gives 
slightest  hint  of  our  becoming  God  in  any  remotest 


68        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

sense.  This  plea  is  a  plea  for  that  which  the 
command  forbids — the  putting  in  place  of  God 
that  which  is  partial  and  less  than  Himself. 

But  the  peril  appears  even  in  more  thought- 
ful circles.  Have  we  not  come  to  identify  God 
with  His  best  known  and  best  loved  attribute 
— lovef  Are  there  not  some  of  us  who  are 
slow  to  see  that  love  is  not  mere  sentiment, 
that  Scripture  says  with  equal  firmness,  "Our 
God  is  a  consuming  fire"  t  In  our  gladness  at 
the  vision  of  the  redemption  of  God,  in  our  exul- 
tation that  He  loves  the  world  infinitely  we  are 
losing  our  sense  of  that  from  which  He  has  saved 
us  and  which  therefore  He  must  oppose  with  the 
infinite  reaction  of  love.  In  our  absorption  in 
one  trait  we  are  losing  sight  of  God  Himself. 
You  have  not  the  character  of  God  wrapped  up 
in  any  one  of  His  attributes.  Your  diamond 
has  the  trait  of  hardness  whereby  it  will  cut  the 
glass,  but  you  have  not  the  diamond  wrapped  up 
in  that  one  statement.  You  have  left  out  of  it 
its  brilliancy,  its  brotherhood  in  history  and 
structure  with  other  bodies  which  have  not  that 
trait  You  have  left  out  itself.  And  you  have 
no  one  attribute  of  God  which  wraps  up  in 
itself  all  the  others.  Until  you  take  the  view  of 
God   which    gives  a  well   rounded  thought  of 


SPIRITUALITY  IN  WORSHIP         69 

Him,  you  have  the  idolatry  of  the  present  day 
which  calls  for  the  jealousy  of  God. 

Here  is  also  a  jealousy  of  the  Father  heart 
which  wants  direct  access  to  His  children. 
There  must  not  be  interference  between  Him- 
self and  them,  nor  anything  that  prevents  His 
fuller  revelation  of  Himself.  An  idol  always 
fixes  the  thought  of  God.  You  have  noted  in 
the  history  of  the  race  that  the  nations  which 

^     have  idols  have  not  advanced  in  their  knowledge 
^jjLOf  God.     They  have  had  their  idea  fixed  in  wood 

J^  ^or  stone,  and  have  not  left  themselves  free  of 
heart  to  receive  new  visions  of  Him.  And  it  is 
the  bitterest  of  idolatry  to  shut  one's  heart 
against  God  as  though  one  knew  all  one  might 
know  of  Him,  as  though  the  revelation  of  the 
face  of  God  were  now  complete,  as  though 
there  could  be  nothing  more  to  see  or  know. 
Generation  after  generation,  new  light  is  coming, 
coming  out  of  nature  all  about  us,  coming  out  of 
the  revealed  and  inspired  word,  coming  out  of 
human  experience  with  God,  new  light  that  is 
giving  us  new  visions  of  Him.  Your  idol,  your 
required  ceremony,  your  determined  order, 
hinders  such  revelation,  holds  you  to  the  old 
idea,  fixes  metes  and  bounds  to  your  thought 
It    saves    you   from  much  folly,   reminds  you 


70        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

constantly  of  the  truth  which  has  made  the  past 
great,  and  it  renders  you  good  service,  but  it 
risks  your  further  knowledge  of  God.  Thought 
of  any  church  as  a  final  one,  whose  word  is  final 
law,  or  of  any  ceremony  which  exhausts  the 
knowledge  of  God,  or  of  any  order  of  men  which 
has  final  right  to  speak  to  men  for  God,  is  a 
thought  to  provoke  the  jealousy  of  God.  He 
is  a  Father,  who  seeks  direct  and  unhindered 
access  to  men,  seeks  above  all  to  reveal  Himself 
continually  more  fully .  than  before.  This,  I 
count  it,  is  at  least  part  of  the  meaning  of  the 
jealousy  of  God. 

But  the  commandment  is  for  our  own  good. 
That  appears  in  the  law  of  heredity  which  is  so 
strongly  stated  here.  By  it  God  visits  the 
iniquity  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto 
the  third  and  fourth  generation  of  them  that 
hate  Him,  and  shows  mercy  unto  the  thousandth 
generation  of  them  that  love  Him  and  keep  His 
commandments. 

This  is  no  arbitrary  fact  bound  up  with  this 
one  law.  It  is  a  great,  unbroken  law  that  finds 
its  large  illustration  here.  Let  a  lowered  idea  of 
God  take  hold  on  one  generation.  Its  effect  is 
scarcely  perceptible  in  the  first  generation.  If  it 
could  end  there,  we  would  have  little  to  mourn. 


SPIRITUALITY  IN  WOKSHIP         71 

But  that  fact  gets  caught  with  all  the  other  great 
facts  of  a  man's  life,  and  becomes  part  of  the 
coming  generation.  In  the  second  generation  it 
is  more  noticeable,  and  as  it  comes  to  the  third 
and  fourth,  it  begins  to  cut  men  off  from 
God. 

You  have  occasion  to  think  of  that  when  you 
see  the  fine  sons  of  godly  fathers,  sons  who  have 
gone  another  way  and  have  left  God  out  of  their 
lives,  sons  who  are  reaping  the  harvest  which 
their  fathers  sowed.  You  even  hear  them 
pleading  their  own  cases  as  illustration  of  the 
fact  that  belief  in  God  is  not  essential  to  man- 
hood nor  character.  So  they  hand  on  to  their 
children  none  of  the  training  which  has  made 
their  own  character.  They  leave  God  out  of  the 
lives  of  their  children,  they  bring  no  pressure  on 
the  door  of  their  hearts  to  have  them  open  to 
Him,  and  so  they  lower  the  tone  of  living  in 
the  next  generation.  On  the  other  hand,  you 
have  seen  one  from  a  poor  family,  who  caught 
somewhere  an  inspiration  for  the  better  thing 
and  made  a  hard  struggle  towards  it.  Not  much 
came  of  it  in  his  own  life.  He  continued  to  be 
poor  stuff,  best  he  ever  came  to  be.  The  blood 
was  too  thin,  had  not  enough  iron  in  it.  But  he 
made  an  upward  start  and  the  next  generation 


72        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

got  the  benefit  of  it.     You  would  hardly  have 
known  the  third  generation. 

There  are  some  of  us  to  whom  this  whole  fact 
of  heredity  and  the  close-bound  solidarity  of  the 
race  is  among  the  most  awful  and  disquieting 
facts  of  life.  There  are  ways  of  looking  at  it, 
that  leave  it  black  and  forbidding.  But  there  it 
is.  Holmes  is  right  when  he  says  that  every 
man  is  an  omnibus  in  which  all  his  ancestors  are 
sitting.  Every  man  of  us  is  the  focal  point  for 
two  great  streams  of  life  that  flowed  to  him  from 
parents,  each  of  whom  was  the  issue  of  a  dividing 
stream,  and  so  on  back.  Each  of  these  streams 
has  brought  its  flotsam  into  our  lives.  A  child 
comes  into  this  world  through  no  wish  of  his  own, 
child  of  parents  whom  he  did  not  choose.  Sup- 
pose they  send  into  him  muddied,  befouled  streams 
of  life ;  suppose  they  bring  him  into  the  world, 
with  their  wrong  appetites,  their  ungoverned 
passions,  all  ready  to  be  set  aflame — I  ask  in  all 
fairness,  what  chance  has  he  f  The  old  question 
of  Abraham  comes  to  mind,  i  i  Shall  not  the  Judge 
of  all  the  earth  do  right?"  On  the  other  hand, 
when  godly  parents  bring  their  children  into 
the  world  it  were  a  mighty  grief  indeed  if  they 
did  not  inherit  their  godly  leanings  and  char- 


SPIRITUALITY  IN  WORSHIP         73 

acter.     From  that  point  of  view,  the  hope  of  the 
world  lies  in  the  fact  of  heredity. 

Bnt  notice  two  things  which  it  accomplishes. 
Visiting  the  iniquities  of  the  fathers  upon  the 
children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generations  of 
them  that  hate  Me — not  many  generations,  you 
note.  Either  evil  runs  out  of  a  family  or  it  runs 
the  family  out.  There  are  apparent  exceptions 
to  that,  but  they  always  leave  out  of  account  the 
incoming  currents  of  righteousness  which  keep 
the  evil  strain  of  blood  from  being  finally  ruin- 
ous. And,  besides,  the  purpose  of  life  is  not 
served  by  long  continuing  sin,  and  there  is  inter- 
vening grace  to  prevent  its  continuance.  You 
notice  a  strange  sensitiveness  to  this  solidarity  in 
evil  among  many  of  the  best  men.  Recall  the 
pathetic  way  in  which  Daniel  confessed  the  evil 
of  his  fathers  as  being  personal  to  himself.  Re- 
call the  same  strain  in  the  great  prayer  of  Nehe- 
miah,  wherein  he  confesses  the  sin  of  his  fathers. 
Recall  the  condemnation  which  Jesus  pronounced 
on  the  Jews  in  His  saying  that  there  should  come 
on  them  ""  the  blood  of  Zecharias  whom  ye  slew 
between  the  temple  and  the  altar" — "ye,"  when 
Zecharias  was  killed  near  800  years  before. 
Then  notice  the  strong  tendency  to  rebel  against 
the  law  of  heredity  as  unjust.     So  indeed  it  looks 


74        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

in  mere  theory.  Bat  whether  rightly  or  not, 
society  is  constantly  applying  it.  Let  a  father 
commit  a  crime,  and  there  are  none  of  his  con- 
nection who  are  not  made  to  feel  it.  Even  chil- 
dren are  made  to  suffer,  over  their  lives  there 
hangs  that  crime,  though  they  had  not  part  in  it 
Society  will  believe  evil  of  them  sooner  for  it 
We  are  daily  recognizing  the  solidarity  of  the 
race.  And  we  do  it  in  the  domain  of  punish- 
ment But  you  note  that  God  is  far  more  lenient 
than  men  are  in  this  very  regard.  Bead  without 
comment  the  famous  eighteenth  chapter  of 
Ezekiel,  in  which  God  plainly  tells  us  that  He 
does  not  hold  any  son  responsible  for  the  acts  of 
his  father,  nor  reward  any  son  for  the  good  acts 
of  his  father.  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die, 
is  the  law,  and  the  soul  that  doeth  righteousness, 
it  shall  live.  But  for  all  that,  it  is  still  true  that 
the  greatest  penalty  for  sin  is  increasing  ease  in 
sinning,  and  the  greatest  reward  for  good  is  in- 
creased ease  in  doing  good.  We  are  all  bound 
in  the  same  bundle  of  life.  There  is  nowhere  an 
ancestor  in  your  line  who  gave  way  to  evil 
who  is  not  helping  at  this  very  day  to  handicap 
you  in  the  race  for  life.  There  are  cold,  clammy 
hands,  hands  long  ago  stiffened  in  death,  which 
are  reaching  across  the  years  and  holding  back 


SPIEITUALITY  IN  WOESHIP         75 

men  who  are  within  their  reach  because  of  blood 
connection.  And  the  thing  of  far  greater  im- 
portance now  is  whether  there  are  men  of  our 
generation  who  are  letting  into  their  lives  the 
things  that  will  be  heavy  for  the  third  and  fourth 
generation  to  bear.  Let  every  man  be  sure  of 
this,  that  if  he  has  yielded  to  the  lower  life  and 
has  let  down  his  ideals,  he  is  adding  to  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  lives  that  shall  follow  his  in  the 
natural  line.  The  law  of  life  may  not  be  trifled 
with,  and  sin  is  not  to  be  rooted  out  of  a  family 
on  short  notice.  When  a  man  puts  a  strain  of  bad 
blood  into  the  generation  of  which  he  is  part  he  is 
mortgaging  the  future  generations.  And  this 
although  the  evil  seems  at  times  to  leap  a  genera- 
tion. Ahaz  was  an  idolater  and  a  neglecter  of 
God.  His  son  was  Hezekiah,  a  spiritual  wor- 
shipper. The  evil  seemed  thwarted.  But  in 
spite  of  Hezekiah  and  all  he  could  hope  to  be, 
the  old  strain  did  appear,  and  Manasseh  his  son 
was  like  his  grandfather  and  not  like  his  father. 
The  second  commandment  has  this  for  its  note  of 
warning.  Lower  your  ideal  of  God  and  you  en- 
danger future  generations.  Cheapen  your  own 
thought  of  piety,  make  little  of  it,  and  you  start 
your  coming  generations  towards  ungodliness 
and  impiety. 


76        THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT 

But  the  law  has  the  other  side.  The  iniquity 
covers  three  or  four  generations.  Eighteousness 
covers  unnumbered  generations.  The  cure  for 
much  of  the  evil  of  the  present  day  is  past  our 
power.  It  is  in  the  blood  from  the  wrongs  of 
generations  ago.  The  hope  of  the  world  is  a  con- 
stant infusion  of  good  blood  from  those  who  are 
seeking  to  bring  righteousness  to  pass.  Every 
man  who  keeps  his  life  up  to  the  high  level 
serves  not  only  his  own  day  and  generation,  but 
the  generations  yet  to  be  as  well.  God's  law 
takes  account  more  generously  of  goodness  than 
of  evil,  keeps  it  alive  longer  and  makes  it  more 
forceful.  And  the  largest  element  in  the  strong 
character  that  is  needed  will  be  a  true  devo- 
tion to  eternal  things,  to  God  and  righteousness. 
In  generations  past  there  were  godly  men  and 
women  who  brought  into  the  very  fibre  of  their 
generation  these  best  things.  It  is  double  shame 
if  their  sons  fall  into  carelessness  and  indiffer- 
ence and  thwart  their  purpose  and  hope. 

The  command  leads  us  into  plain  vision  of 
Christ.  Over  against  every  image  made  of  men, 
He  stands  as  the  express  image  of  the  invisible 
God.  Where  they  catch  only  one  trait  or  an- 
other, and  give  us  no  full  sense  of  God,  He 
gathers  up  in  Himself  all  the  attributes  of  God 


SPIEITUAUTY  IN  WOESHIP         77 

and  sets  forth  His  glory  to  us.  Three  times  in 
Scripture  is  there  used  for  Him  the  word  which 
the  Greek  writers  use  in  this  very  command- 
ment. We  may  not  worship  images  of  God,  be- 
cause here  is  the  true  image.  Would  a  man 
know  God!  Let  him  study  this  Son  of  God. 
We  are  turned  away  from  the  false  images  that 
our  hearts  may  be  tender  for  the  true  image  and 
that  we  may  see  Him  fully  and  truly.  And  it  is 
in  Him  that  we  escape  the  bondage  of  the  old 
sin -laden  heredity,  for  it  is  in  Him  that  we  be- 
come children  of  God,  coming  into  line  of  a  new 
descent,  a  new  strain  of  blood  running  in  the 
veins  of  the  moral  life,  a  strain  which  will  not 
die  out  in  the  thousandth  generation. 


J 


IV 

PRESENT  DAY  REVERENCE 
{The  Third  Commandment) 

Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  vain  ;  for 
the  Lord  will  not  hold  him  guiltless  that  taketh  His  name  in 
vain.— Exodus  20  :  7. 

The  rabbis  say  that  when  this  command  was 
nttered  the  whole  earth  trembled.  The  name  of 
God  as  He  revealed  Himself  to  Abraham  and  his 
followers  is  not  known  to  this  day.  It  was  never 
pronounced,  and  even  the  form  which  was  finally 
adopted,  which  is  certainly  not  the  original  one, 
was  used  only  on  most  august  occasions.  Once 
in  Constantinople  I  saw  a  man  picking  his  way 
with  scrupulous  care  across  a  littered  street.  I 
asked  my  friend  to  explain  his  carefulness.  He 
replied  that  he  was  one  of  a  group  of  devout 
Moslems  who  were  always  scrupulously  watchful 
never  to  set  foot  on  a  bit  of  paper  lest  perhaps 
the  name  of  God  might  be  written  on  it  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  was  accustomed  never  to  utter  the 
name  of  God  without  removing  his  hat  in  rever- 
ence. Before  he  pronounced  the  name  of  God, 
78 


PBESENT  DAY  BEVEKENCE  79 

Boyle  always  made  an  appreciable  pause  that  he 
might  utter  it  with  due  reverence.  There  are 
men  to  whom  this  seems  mechanical.  It  could 
safely  be  set  at  the  bar  of  reverent  judgment  over 
against  the  careless  and  flippant  way  in  which 
we  use  the  name  of  God.  The  name  means  not 
only  the  word  which  we  use,  but  that  for  which 
the  name  stands,  for  the  whole  meaning  of  God. 
The  Westminster  catechism  is  right  in  saying 
that  this  commandment  requires  the  holy  and 
reverent  use  of  all  God's  names,  titles,  attributes, 
ordinances,  word  and  works.  There  is  abundant 
scripture  to  support  that  broad  saying. 

It  is  a  command  which  calls  for  reverence  in 
our  attitude  towards  God.  It  forbids  that 
wretched  habit  into  which  so  many  of  us  have 
fallen  of  jesting  about  holy  things.  In  a  com- 
pany of  Christian  men  once  a  story  was  told  in 
which  there  were  many  opportunities  for  laughter. 
As  it  went  on  towards  its  climax,  we  were  won- 
dering what  the  final  point  would  be,  assured 
only  that  it  would  be  uproariously  ridiculous. 
It  suddenly  came  out  with  the  full  name  of  God. 
I  have  always  honoured  the  group  which  sur- 
rounded that  table  the  more  for  the  fact  of  the 
dead,  awed  silence  which  fell  upon  them.  And 
yet  one  hears  many  a  jest  which  has  for  its  chief 


80         THE  THJKD  COMMANDMENT 

point  either  the  use  of  the  name  of  God,  or  of 
some  passage  from  His  word,  or  of  some  great 
hymn  which  is  offered  to  His  praise.  It  is  a 
miserable  habit.  It  is  ruinous  to  the  spirit  which 
He  requires  as  we  approach  Him. 

Moreover  it  is  a  command  which  forbids  that 
carelessness  in  worship  which  becomes  irrever- 
ence. I  was  one  of  a  deputation  which  waited  a 
little  time  ago  upon  the  personal  attendant  of 
Baron  Komura  of  Japan.  As  we  were  gathered 
about  him,  and  he  was  replying  to  our  address, 
some  one  came  into  the  door  with  considerable 
disturbance,  and  so  far  as  could  be  observed  not 
one  of  the  men  turned  his  eyes  from  the  face  of 
the  speaker.  The  respect,  the  common  regard 
which  his  position  demanded,  he  received  to  its 
fullest,  and  the  lesser,  diverting  disturbance  was 
not  allowed  to  interfere  with  him.  And  yet  in 
the  house  of  God,  when  word  is  being  spoken  of 
Him  and  His  right  over  our  lives,  I  have  seen  a 
most  unimportant  incident  divert  the  attention 
of  the  entire  congregation.  Some  one  rises  and 
passes  out  as  quietly  as  he  may,  followed  by  the 
looks  of  the  entire  congregation,  who  have  for 
the  time  forgotten  God,  whose  presence  makes 
the  place  one  of  constant  reverence.  There  comes 
an  unavoidable  accident     Some  one  must  pay 


PEESEKT  DAY  KEVEKEtfCE  81 

heed  to  it  for  the  aid  of  any  one  in  distress.  The 
lightness  of  our  worship  is  revealed  in  the  fact 
that  so  many  to  whom  it  can  be  of  no  possible 
concern  allow  it  to  divert  them  from  the  ob- 
servance of  that  reverence  to  which  they  are 
called  by  their  very  presence  in  the  house  of  God. 
A  gentleman  once  said  in  my  hearing  that 
concentration  of  mind  is  the  rock-bottom  of 
Christian  character.  The  saying  appeals  to  me 
with  reference  to  our  spirit  of  worship.  If  we 
are  in  the  presence  of  most  high  God  when  we 
come  into  His  house,  then  surely  the  habit  of 
attention  to  trifling  things  is  unsettling  the 
foundation  of  our  reverence.  I  am  passing  no 
more  severe  judgment  in  such  a  matter  than  does 

*  \  the  word  of  God  itself.  Doubtless  you  remember 
^  the  word  that  is  said  in  Ecclesiastes — Keep  thy 
.yfoot  when  thou  goest  to  the  house  of  God,  for  to 
^    draw  nigh  to  hear  is  better  than  to  give  the  sacri- 

.  j     fice  of  fools ;  for  they  know  not  that  they  do  evil. 

J|  There  are  some  of  us  to  whom  it  has  never  oc- 
curred that  this  tendency  to  mind  other  things 
than  the  worship  for  which  we  have  come  to  the 
house  of  God  is  developing  in  us  a  habit  of  irrev- 
erence. We  know  not  that  we  do  evil.  We  do 
evil  for  all  that.  Coming  into  our  place  of  wor- 
ship laughing  and  talking,  without  that  outward 


82 


THE  THIED  COMMANDMENT 


manner  of  reverence  which  is  befitting,  involves 
no  conscious  wickedness.  It  only  imperils  the 
obedience  which  we  owe  to  God,  that  we  shall 
not  take  His  worship  in  vain. 

But  of  course  the  commandment  stands  against 
irreverence  anywhere.  It  is  a  true  saying  that 
one  of  the  perils  of  our  own  day  is  the  loss  of  the 
fear  of  God.  We  have  taken  His  love  so  lightly 
and  easily,  so  cheaply  even,  that  we  forget  to 
walk  softly  in  His  presence.  You  will  be 
struck  by  the  saying  of  a  well  known  minister 
in  this  city,  that  while  God  is  calling  us  into  fel- 
lowship with  Himself,  it  would  be  better  that  we 
stand  far  off  than  that  we  rush  in  and  eat  off  the 
mercy  seat.  I  would  it  might  grip  the  thought 
of  all  of  us,  that  we  are  coming  to  think  too 
trifliugly  of  God.  The  great  things  of  His 
majesty  and  glory  are  too  easy  for  us  to  take  upon 
our  lips,  and  even  into  our  lives.  We  may  well 
learn  to  stand  in  awe  and  to  measure  our  petti- 
ness by  His  unapproachable  greatness.  I  am  the 
more  ready  to  say  this  now  because  there 
seemed  need  in  our  last  study  for  a  word  which 
should  guard  us  against  mere  formalism,  and 
should  leave  our  souls  free  to  run  directly  to  the 
Father.  Freedom  is  not  familiarity,  and  even 
with  God  familiarity  breeds  contempt.     There  are 


PEESENT  DAY  KEVEKENCE  83 

great  passages  of  scripture,  there  are  great 
hymns,  and  especially  there  are  great  words  which 
have  lost  their  meaning  because  we  have  bandied 
them  about  as  cheap  things,  for  our  own  pleasure 
or  for  our  amusement. 

Turn  now  to  the  literal  meaning  of  the  com- 
mandment, Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the 
Lord  thy  God  for  vanity,  or  for  falsehood.  There 
is  in  it  the  prohibition  of  perjury,  lying  under 
oath.  There  are  some  who  have  found  in  Jesus' 
word  concerning  oaths  a  prohibition  of  all  forms 
of  oaths.  Careful  reading  indicates  that  this  is 
not  His  meaning.  The  literalists  of  His  day  had 
come,  where  all  literalists  come,  to  a  mechanical 
understanding  of  great  principles.  They  had 
understood  this  command  to  mean  that  they 
should  not  take  the  name  of  God  in  vain,  but  they 
could  use  any  form  of  oath  they  pleased  in  cur- 
rent speech.  They  swore  by  the  heavens  as  men 
do  still,  and  by  the  earth,  and  by  their  heads.  It 
was  a  type  of  profanity  in  common  speech. 
Jesus  insists  that  our  speech  shall  be  simple  and 
direct,  and  so  reliable  that  it  shall  not  need  sus- 
taining by  these  trifling  expressions  or  even  by 
serious  expressions.  This  commandment  implies 
that  oaths  are  to  be  taken  but  they  are  to  be 
taken  seriously  and  without  trifling.     To  urge  us 


84         THE  THIRD  COMMANDMENT 

not  to  take  the  name  of  the  Lord  our  God  in  vain 
is  to  make  very  plain  the  expectation  that 
solemnly  and  with  proper  reverence  we  shall 
take  that  name  upon  our  lips.  The  legal  oath 
therefore  is  not  only  permissible  but  impera- 
tive. 

There  are  those  who  say  it  is  no  worse  to  lie 
under  oath  than  without  oath.  It  is  worse  for  all 
that.  Lying  is  always  bad  but  there  is  double 
sin  when  one  lies  under  oath.  If  you  doubt  my 
word,  let  us  suppose,  I  bring  you  a  third  party 
who  witnesses  what  I  say,  who  has  knowledge  of 
the  facts,  and  who  becomes  a  party  with  me  in  my 
story.  If  now,  I  lie,  he  must  either  contradict 
me,  or  else  he  must  become  party  to  my  false- 
hood. If  you  should  discover  afterwards  that 
I  did  lie,  you  would  know  that  he  also  was 
party  to  the  lie.  When  an  oath  is  administered 
to  me,  and  I  swear  as  God  is  my  witness  to  tell 
the  truth,  if  I  lie  it  involves  Him.  It  makes 
Him,  the  God  of  truth,  party  in  a  solemn  and  defi- 
nite sense  to  the  falsehood  which  I  have  told. 
He  is  knowing  of  the  facts,  and  I,  without  His 
will,  claim  His  testimony  to  the  thing  which  I 
know  is  a  lie.  The  taking  of  an  oath,  therefore, 
is  a  most  solemn  thing. 

Our  laws  are  doing  us  immeasurable  damage  in 


PRESENT  DAY  REVERENCE  85 

the  trifling  way  in  which  they  require  it  to  be 
taken.  I  asked  a  jurist  a  while  ago,  a  man  who 
had  risen  from  the  lower  courts  into  the  higher, 
for  his  impression  regarding  the  giving  of  oaths. 
His  letter  laid  almost  its  entire  stress  upon  the 
urging  that  the  oath  is  administered  much  too 
frequently.  It  is  administered  on  most  trifling  oc- 
casions, and  for  most  trifling  things.  My  judicial 
friend  urged  that  there  should  be  penalties  at- 
tached for  falsehoods  in  courts  of  the  law,  or  in 
matters  affecting  the  State,  and  that  the  oath 
should  not  then  be  administered.  It  should  be 
reserved  for  those  very  solemn  occasions  when 
more  serious  interests  are  involved.  The  penalty 
of  perjury,  that  is,  should  apply  to  falsehood  un- 
der legal  conditions,  but  the  oath  which  a  man 
takes  should  be  used  only  in  those  grave  instances 
which  affect  the  life  of  others  or  large  interests  in 
which  the  character  of  the  man  is  involved.  I 
know  there  are  other  things  to  say.  As  a  teacher 
of  morals,  I  am  bound  to  agree  with  my  judicial 
friend.  Putting  men  under  oath  over  a  neigh- 
bourhood quarrel,  or  the  value  of  property,  of 
whose  value  they  cannot  be  sure,  is  to  make  the 
whole  idea  of  the  oath  less  serious  and  impressive 
than  it  should  be.  I  am  not  now  suggesting 
whether  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  court  of  law 


I 


86         THE  THIED  COMMANDMENT 

this  infrequent  giving  of  oath  is  feasible.  I 
simply  insist  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  morals 
it  is  imperative. 

The  commandment  also  deals  with  the  taking 
of  personal  oaths,  the  binding  of  ourselves  with 
promises  in  which  the  cooperation  of  the  name 
of  God  is  involved.  We  make  these  promises 
quite  too  cheaply,  and  we  need  to  hold  them  all 
subj  ect  to  higher  obligations.  When  Herod  prom- 
ised Salome  that  he  would  give  her  anything 
she  asked  to  the  half  of  his  kingdom,  it  was  a 
promise  that  was  not  at  any  point  binding  on  his 
life  when  she  asked  him  to  do  the  thing  which 
violated  an  always  higher  obligation.  He  was 
under  no  bond  whatever  to  take  the  head  of  John 
the  Baptist  and  give  it  to  her.  That  did  not  be- 
long to  his  kingdom.  It  belonged  to  a  realm  en- 
tirely outside  his  kingdom.  Every  promise  of 
ours,  whether  we  think  it  or  not,  binds  us  only  in 
so  far  as  higher  obligations  will  permit.  Jesus 
made  that  very  plain  to  the  Pharisees  when  He 
said  that  no  one  of  them  had  a  right  to  vow  away 
even  to  God  his  responsibility  for  the  care  of  his 
family.  It  is  well  that  we  be  entirely  brave  in 
making  promises  which  we  ought  to  make.  The 
man  who  is  so  careful  about  his  word  that  he  will 
not  make  promises — say  to  the  church,  or  to  the 


PRESENT  DAY  REVERENCE  87 

Christian  life,  will  very  commonly  smother  his 
life  with  promises  that  are  not  important.  There 
are  promises  which  we  ought  to  make.  We  shall 
not  escape  our  obligation  by  refusal  to  make  those 
promises.  But  we  may  well  safeguard  our  lives 
against  a  glib  readiness  to  promise  serious  and 
important  things.  Especially  may  we  save  our- 
selves from  such  a  common  use  of  God's  name  in 
making  our  promises  as  will  cheapen  it  to  us. 

Too  much  cannot  be  said  of  the  serious  ne- 
cessity in  social  life  of  the  keeping  of  oaths  and 
solemn  promises.  It  would  be  to  the  unsettling 
of  the  foundations  of  the  entire  social  structure 
if  such  agreements  are  not  kept.  The  state  is 
right  in  punishing  with  severest  terms  the  sin 
of  perjury.  We  are  right  in  being  merciless 
with  the  man  who  binds  himself  with  a  promise, 
and  then,  unhindered  by  a  higher  obligation, 
which  is  implied  in  every  promise,  trifles  with 
the  thing  he  has  bound  himself  to  do. 

Another  of  the  prohibitions  of  this  command- 
ment lies  in  its  forbidding  the  sin  of  profanity, 
the  taking  of  the  name  of  God  in  current  speech 
lightly.  I  wish  I  could  feel  that  the  command- 
meot  is  not  needed,  but  no  man  can  walk  our 
streets,  or  ride  in  our  cars,  or  pass  through  a 
group  of  men,  without  knowing  that  a  reigning 


88         THE  THIED  COMMANDMENT 

sin  of  this  day  is  profanity.  Young  men  who 
are  beardless  will  take  upon  their  lips  so  cheaply 
the  name  of  the  mighty  God,  who  made  and 
sustains  them,  that  one  could  shudder.  Even 
the  devils  have  not  gone  so  far,  the  apostle 
James  tells  us.  The  devils  believe  there  is  one 
God,  and  they  shudder  as  they  think  it.  We 
bandy  His  name  about  as  though  it  were  the 
cheapest  of  all  cheap  words.  For  some  of  us 
who  reverence  that  name  and  count  God  a  friend 
whom  we  cannot  bear  to  have  insulted,  there  has 
come  to  be  almost  an  entire  loss  of  pleasure  in 
the  crowd  which  surrounds  our  great  games,  or 
any  place  of  sport.  The  baseball  field  is  a 
horribly  profane  place  in  most  of  its  quarters. 
Our  commons  in  the  park  is  marked  by  groups 
whose  whole  speech  is  toned  to  the  dialect  of 
hell  itself.  It  is  painfully  prevalent  and  un- 
speakably perilous. 

May  I  gather  up  for  you  in  three  words  the 
chief  indictment  against  profanity?  And  I  do 
it  to  deepen  your  own  sense  of  horror  at  the 
light  way  in  which  we  are  using  the  sacred  name, 
and  also  to  safeguard  yourselves  against  kin- 
dred offences.  Beginning  with  the  weakest 
indictment,  let  us  say  that  profanity  in  all  its 
forms  is  ungentlemanly.     It   is  a  sin    against 


PKESENT  DAY  KEVEKENCE  89 

society.  Not  long  ago  I  met  a  woman  who 
had  not  heard  an  oath  in  ten  years.  That  is  a 
revealing  fact.  The  presence  of  one  who  is 
recognized  as  a  true  woman,  and  in  most  circles 
even  of  a  gentleman  is  a  check  on  profanity.  It 
is  the  characteristic  language  of  the  depraved  j 
the  sot  and  the  libertine  talk  it  naturally.  Every 
man  who  yields  to  it,  whoever  he  may  be,  is  de- 
scending to  the  level  of  the  lowest  of  his  race, 
and  therein  leaving  the  highest  level.  Profanity 
is  the  hall-mark  of  the  low  life.  We  do  not 
follow  Chesterfield  with  any  devotion,  but 
Chesterfield  was  right  in  saying  that  a  gentleman 
never  swears.  If  you  will  take  a  group  of  men 
in  one  of  the  dives  of  the  city,  and  listen  to  their 
talk  for  very  long,  you  will  discover  two  traits. 
It  will  be  profane  and  it  will  be  vulgar.  If  you 
take  a  group  in  one  of  our  clubs,  who  are  living 
the  fast  or  the  high  life,  and  whose  hearts  are 
rotten,  whatever  their  appearance  may  be,  you 
will  note  those  same  two  traits :  their  speech  is 
profane  and  it  is  vnlgar.  They  both  outrage 
society.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  them  as  to 
other  traits,  they  are  ungentlemanly  in  practicing 
that  which  is  prohibited  in  the  circles  which 
make  society  safe. 
We  rise  somewhat  in  the  indictment  when  we 


90         THE  THERD  COMMANDMENT 

add,  secondly,  that  profanity  is  utterly  and 
always  inexcusable.  It  is  a  sin  against  reason. 
There  is  room  for  discussion  among  reasonable 
men  regarding  stealing.  When  Jean  Yaljean 
steals  bread  to  save  the  life  of  his  wards  there  are 
some  of  us  who  are  willing  to  contend  that  he  did 
wrong  and  ought  not  to  have  done  it.  We  will 
listen  respectfully,  however,  to  the  man  who 
takes  the  opposite  view  and  defends  him  for  it. 
Stealing  is  conceivably  debatable  or  excusable. 
When  a  man  lies  to  save  his  own  life,  or  that  of 
another,  there  are  some  of  us  who  will  contend 
that  it  is  wrong — he  should  not  have  done  it. 
We  will  listen,  however,  respectfully  while 
another  man  tries  to  show  that  it  is  defensi- 
ble. Lying  may  sometimes  have  a  form  of  ex- 
cuse. Profanity  has  absolutely  none  which  will 
stand  at  the  bar  of  reason.  No  man  who  is 
thoughtful,  either  in  moral  or  social  matters,  can 
discuss  for  five  minutes  all  the  reasons  which 
men  give  for  their  profanity  without  having  his 
sense  of  the  wickedness  and  inexcusableness  of  it 
deepen  in  his  thought.  I  shall  point  out  to  you 
presently  what  some  of  the  reasons  are,  and  try 
to  show  to  you  how  they  deepen  the  sin  of  it 
Just  now  I  am  content  to  add  this  second  term  in 
the  indictment — profanity  is    ungentlemanly,  a 


PRESENT  DAY  REVERENCE 


91 


sin  against  society ;  it  is  inexcusable,  a  sin 
against  reason. 

Add  this  third  item— it  is  wicked,  a  sin 
against  God.  What  actually  occurs  when  a  man 
takes  the  name  of  God  in  vain  !  He,  the  creature 
of  a  day,  is  making  light  of  eternal  God.  He 
who  is  the  hourly  beneficiary  of  God's  care,  who 
has  a  tongue  because  God  gave  it  to  him,  who  is 
surrounded  by  air  because  God  placed  it  there 
and  placed  him  in  it,  whose  throat  holds  its  vocal 
chords  because  God  made  and  sustains  it  there, 
uses  all  these  to  make  light  of  holy  God. 
Whether  he  be  a  beardless  youth  who  has  picked 
up  phrases  from  older  men,  or  a  man  who  is 
deep  set  in  the  habit  of  profanity,  it  is  an  utterly 
inexcusable  and  indefensible  sin  against  God 
when  a  man  is  profane.  Let  this  stand  for  the  in- 
dictment :  it  is  an  ungentlemanly,  inexcusable, 
wicked  thing  to  take  the  name  of  God  in 
vain. 

It  will  appear  in  the  reasons  which  are  gen- 
erally given  for  it.  Profanity  doubtless  origi- 
nated, as  my  friend,  Professor  Patrick  of  Iowa 
University  has  pointed  out,  in  a  desire  to  make 
one's  self  impressive  to  others.  He  links  it  prop- 
erly with  the  growling  of  the  lion,  the  hiss  of  the 
gerpent,  and  the  arching  of  the  back  or  enlarging  of 


92         THE  THIED  COMMANDMENT 

the  fur  of  animals.  They  are  trying  to  make 
themselves  larger  and  more  impressive  and  more 
awesome.  So  when  men  wish  to  impress  others, 
they  call  to  their  aid  the  most  awesome  words 
they  can  think  of.  First  among  those  words  will 
stand  the  name  of  God.  No  generation  ever  gets 
away  from  a  half-conscious  awe  of  Him.  Along 
with  that  will  come  the  most  awe-inspiring  things 
that  He  does.  The  condemnation  of  men  for  their 
sin  is  invoked  in  a  cheap,  trifling  way,  which  has 
robbed  the  word  of  its  solemn  meaning  to  us.  It 
would  be  to  some  men  utterly  unthinkable  that 
they  have  meant  that  God  should  do  with  their 
fellows  what  they  themselves  have  expressed. 
There  are  men  to  whom  the  thought  of  God's 
banishing  men  from  His  presence  is  such  that 
they  ridicule  it,  who  yet  use  the  phrases  of  just 
that  condemnation  regarding  their  fellows. 

So  the  profane  word  is  used  to  give  force  to  our 
expression ;  that  is,  it  puts  God  to  the  cheap 
service  of  reinforcing  us.  It  calls  upon  Him  to  aid 
us  in  the  thing  which  is  at  its  heart  sinful  in  any 
case.  We  use  it  to  express  our  anger,  and  so  we 
make  God  partner  with  our  wrath.  It  is  evil  to 
be  angry  with  a  fellow  man.  Is  there  any 
measure  to  the  added  depth  of  evil  when  beside 
being  angry  ourselves  we  drag  Him  into  the  abyss 


PEESENT  DAY  EEVEEENCE  93 

with  us  and  seek  to  involve  Him  in  the  anger  of 
onr  souls  f 

Or,  profanity  is  used  to  reveal  our  independ- 
ence. It  is  so  that  it  starts  with  small  boys. 
They  are  asserting  themselves.  They  want  to 
horrify  their  gentler  companions  by  coming 
quickly  into  their  manhood,  and  showing  their 
independence  of  devotion,  or  of  tradition,  or  of 
reverence.  When  Peter  stood  by  the  open  fire 
and  the  serving  maid  accused  him  of  being  a  fol- 
lower of  Jesus,  and  he  wanted  to  show  most 
markedly  that  he  did  not  belong  to  Him,  he  used 
an  oath.  After  that  there  was  no  discussion. 
Every  man  who  knew  Jesus  knew  that  this  could 
not  be  one  of  His  followers.  I  beg  you  to  notice 
how  completely  Peter  silenced  inquiry  and  re- 
vealed his  independence  of  Christ  by  breaking 
into  cursing. 

For  most  men,  however,  profanity  has  virtually 
lost  its  reason.  It  is  simply  a  habit  unbroken.  It 
is  remarkable  that  we  should  suppose  that  that 
involves  excuse.  Why  can  we  not  see  that  the 
habit  involves  a  thousandfold  more  than  the  in- 
cidental sin  t  If  a  man  has  grown  into  the  habit 
of  using  the  name  of  God  triflingly  then  there 
must  lie  back  in  his  record  many  and  many  a  use 
of  it,  then  he  must  be  marvellously  callous  to  the 


94         THE  THIBD  COMMANDMENT 

holiness  of  that  name  which  he  bandies  about. 
Sometimes  men  look  us  square  in  the  face  and  say, 
"  I  did  use  an  oath,  but  I  am  so  in  the  habit  of  it 
I  did  not  think  what  I  was  doing. "  So  in  the 
habit  of  it  ?  What  a  record  the  man  must  have ! 
And  how  heavy  must  be  the  condemnation  writ- 
ten  already  in  his  nature  !  He  has  warped  and 
hardened  and  calloused  his  nature,  and  in  that 
lies  no  excuse  but  only  added  condemnation. 

All  this  is  not  too  seriously  said.  The  Lord 
will  not  hold  him  guiltless  that  taketh  His  name 
in  vain.  Profanity,  irreverence  is  a  sin  against 
the  Person  of  the  Sovereign.  It  is  high  treason 
against  the  only  King  of  men.  It  is  renouncing 
His  authority,  and  the  punishment  is  inevitable. 
It  has  a  punishment  in  one's  own  moral  nature. 
It  robs  one  of  the  delicacy  of  one's  heart.  It  robs 
one  of  the  spirit  of  reverence.  It  makes  one  un- 
ready to  acknowledge  the  rights  and  claims  of  God. 
One's  own  moral  nature  suffers  from  it.  The 
punishment  lies  also  in  the  lowering  of  the  tone  of 
the  whole  race.  There  is  a  great  pathos  about 
this  assertion  of  ourselves  against  God.  It  makes 
us  orphans  in  the  universe.  We  have  lost  His 
Fatherhood.  We  have  banished  ourselves  from 
His  home.  The  punishment  lies  also  in  the  in- 
jury of  sensitive  ones.     You  have  seen  children 


PRESENT  DAY  REVERENCE  95 

standing  in  the  edge  of  a  crowd,  taking  in  with 
open  mouth  the  vulgarity  and  profanity  of  men 
who  stood  in  the  centre.  Their  natures  were 
being  hardened,  they  were  being  spoiled  in  the 
fineness  of  their  lives.  Profanity,  irreverence  is 
the  most  coarsening  of  our  sins.  It  takes  away 
the  edge  of  the  fine  life.  Jesus  has  already  pro- 
nounced His  woe  upon  the  man  who  makes  one  of 
the  little  ones  to  offend.  He  had  better  have 
been  drowned  in  the  depths  of  the  sea  before  any 
child  learned  from  him  irreverence  or  the  use  of 
an  oath.  The  punishment  for  the  sin  lies  finally 
in  the  certainty  that  if  it  be  not  repented  of,  and 
the  spirit  which  it  indicates  be  not  changed,  there 
is  such  disharmony  between  the  man  and  his  God 
that  he  must  be  banished  from  the  presence  of 
God.  I  wish  it  might  be  said  in  such  tenderness 
as  He  would  say  it.  Why  should  any  man  go 
into  the  presence  of  God,  accepted  and  loving, 
when  he  has  debased  for  himself  and  for  others 
the  entire  thought  of  God,  and  has  unfitted  him- 
self for  any  fellowship  with  Him  1 

But  the  study  cannot  be  complete  without  an 
effort  to  see  how  this  same  sin  has  its  lighter 
forms,  more  easily  forgivable,  because  less 
thoughtful,  and  that  we  are  widely  guilty  of  it 
It  forbids  the  irreverent  use  of  all  God's  attributes, 


96         THE  THIED  COMMANDMENT 

and  yet  have  you  noticed  that  those  common  ex- 
pressions which  we  use  are  almost  all  either  attri- 
butes which  He  especially  claims,  or  are  rooted 
in  those  attributes?  There  is  something  un- 
pleasant and  disturbing  in  the  use  of  the  word 
"gracious,"  or  "goodness,"  or  "mercy"  on  the 
lips  of  a  Christian.  It  is  not  meant  for  irrever- 
ence, but  the  words  lose  for  us,  when  they  are  so 
used,  their  larger  meaning.  Who  are  you  that 
you  should  cheapen  the  attribute  which  most  high 
God  has  claimed  for  Himself,  that  the  Lord  is 
gracious,  that  His  mercy  is  everlasting,  that  His 
goodness  reaches  to  all  men?  Why  should  you 
even  thoughtlessly  invoke  these  great  traits  of  His 
character  for  your  cheap  purposes  ?  When  one 
came  to  Jesus,  and  said,  "Good  Master,"  Jesus 
shrank  from  the  word  and  said,  "Why  callest 
thou  Me  good?  There  is  none  good  but  One." 
Goodness  belongs  to  Him.  And  yet  we  will  trip 
off  our  light  slangy  saying,  in  which  we  claim 
goodness  for  ourselves.  i  i  My  goodness  ! ' p  What 
right  have  I  to  mention  that  when  He,  my  Mas- 
ter, would  not  even  claim  it  for  Himself,  saving 
it  for  the  God  whom  I  trust  as  He  trusted  Him  ? 
So  far  as  I  can  think,  there  are  none  of  these 
cheap  expressions  which  are  rooted  in  anything 
else  than  some  attribute  of  God.    We  are  spoiling 


PKESESTT  DAY  KEVEKENCE  97 

our  lips  by  using  them.  We  are  ruining  our  con- 
versation by  interlarding  it  with  these  expressions. 

Will  you  let  me  urge  that  as  profanity  is  a 
reigning  sin  of  men,  so  this  offence  of  a  cheap  use 
of  the  great  attributes  of  God  is  far  more  prevalent 
among  women  than  it  is  among  men  ?  There  are 
some,  indeed,  for  whom  it  takes  the  place  of  the 
profanity  to  which  men  are  addicted ;  but  there 
are  some  who  would  be  much  pained  to  have  it 
suggested  that  they  were  yielding  to  any  such 
vice  as  profanity,  and  it  is  of  them  that  I  think 
now.  It  is  equally  an  offence  against  society, 
and  reason,  and  God,  though  the  degree  may  dif- 
fer, equally  an  offence  to  take  triflingly  these 
attributes  of  God  upon  our  lips. 

When  do  we  need  them!  How  can  we  justify 
them  to  ourselves— these  or  any  others?  There 
are  great  times  when  men  must  use  such  words : 
there  come  times  when  a  man  must  lift  his  hand 
to  heaven  and  swear  by  the  great  God  who  is 
there.  There  are  times  when  a  man  must  plead 
a  cause  "in  heaven's  name."  There  are  times 
when  the  goodness,  and  the  graciousness,  and  the 
mercy  of  God  must  be  pleaded.  Do  you  not  see 
that  we  are  robbing  those  times  of  their  meaning 
by  the  cheap  ways  in  which  we  are  using  the 
very  great  expressions  1    Jesus'  word  comes  again 


98         THE  THIED  COMMANDMENT 

to  mind — Let  your  speech  be  Yea,  yea,  nay,  nay. 
Unload  your  sentences  of  this  needless  weight. 
If  it  does  not  seem  strong  enough  to  you  to  say 
the  thing  that  is  in  your  heart  to  say,  then  keep 
closed  mouth  until  some  strong  enough  thing 
does  come  to  you  to  say.  If  you  have  fallen  into 
the  habit  of  buttressing  everything  you  say  by 
some  cheap  expression,  then  renounce  the  habit 
and  make  your  words  in  themselves  strong  enough, 
and  your  character  back  of  your  words  mighty 
enough  to  carry  conviction. 

And  all  this  to  maintain  between  ourselves  and 
our  God  that  solemn  relationship  which  lies  in 
the  word  u  reverence."  Do  not  forget  its  mean- 
ing. It  is  rooted  in  the  word  "to  fear"  and  its 
first  two  letters  mean  u  again."  Eeverence  is 
rousing  again  in  ourselves  the  fear  which  any 
loyal  son  has  for  his  father'  s  will,  and  which 
any  creature  of  God  ought  to  have  for  his  God. 
It  is  walking  softly  in  the  presence  of  the  majesty 
of  the  King  of  heaven  and  earth. 


f 


PRESENT  DAY  SABBATH  OBSERVANCE 
{The  Fourth  Commandment) 

Remember  the  Sabbath  day  to  keep  it  holy  ;  six  days  shalt  thou 
labour  and  do  all  thy  work,  but  the  seventh  day  is  the  Sabbath 
of  the  Lord  thy  Ood;  in  it  thou  shalt  not  do  any  work,  thou, 
nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  daughter,  thy  manservant,  nor  ihy  maid- 
servant, nor  thine  ox,  nor  thine  ass,  nor  thy  stranger  that  is 
within  thy  gates.  For  in  six  days  the  Lord  made  heaven  and 
earth,  the  sea  and  all  that  in  them  is,  and  rested  the  seventh 
day.  Wherefore  the  Lord  blessed  the  Sabbath  day  and  hal- 
lowed it.—  Exodus  20  :  8-11. 

The  question  of  the  day  on  which  the  Sabbath 
shall  be  observed  does  not  call  for  mnch  dis- 
cussion. The  change  from  the  seventh  day  of 
the  week  to  the  first  is  fully  justified  by  the  un- 
broken tradition  of  the  church.  The  celebration 
of  the  day  now  takes  us  back  to  the  completion 
of  redemption,  as  before  Christ  it  took  its  ob- 
servers back  to  the  completion  of  creation.  The 
true  life  of  the  church  received  its  inspiration  in 
the  gift  of  the  Spirit  on  that  day.  It  is  idle  to 
pretend  that  the  day  might  be  changed.  Scrip- 
ture, the  history  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  the 
meaning  of  the  day  itself  sustain  the  present  ob- 
servance. 

90 


100      THE  FOUKTH  COMMANDMENT 

The  important  question  of  our  day  is,  Sow 
shall  the  Sabbath  be  observed  %  That  it  is  sadly 
desecrated  now  is  beyoDd  debate.  More  than 
four  million  men  are  regularly  employed  in 
labour  on  the  Sabbath  day  in  this  country  alone. 
There  are  business  houses  wherein  the  Sabbath 
was  formerly  observed,  who  consider  that  the  in- 
crease of  their  business  has  demanded  more  and 
more  Sunday  work.  Street  and  steam  railroads 
have  become  large  Sabbath  breakers,  not  merely 
meeting  the  needs  of  the  people,  but  creating 
needs  which  they  may  supply.  In  many  of  our 
cities,  the  street  roads  have  developed  parks  at 
either  end  of  their  lines,  in  which  they  arrange 
sacred  concerts,  given  by  reverent  brass  bands 
playing  opera  airs  and  hymns,  on  Sunday  after- 
noons, thus  creating  the  need  for  their  own 
services.  This  is  a  comparatively  late  develop- 
ment of  the  charitable  spirit.  It  is  done,  you 
understand,  with  no  thought  of  profit,  but  only 
because  people  are  so  closely  bound  to  their 
work  during  the  week  that  tney  must  have  fresh 
air  and  enjoyment  on  Sunday.  Our  steam  roads 
have  planned  the  quiet  of  Sunday  by  giving 
reduced  rate  excursions  which  cover  the  Sabbath 
day.  It  is  purely  incidental  that  there  is  some 
small  financial  profit  in  this  benevolence. 


PEESENT  SABBATH  OBSEEVANCE     101 

The  Sunday  newspaper  dates  from  the  Civil 
War.  It  has  become  increasingly  a  money- 
making  and  not  a  people  serving  institution. 
Its  educational  value  is  4b6uV4ly  small.  '  Ity  it, 
women  are  taught  how  to , become,  beautiful^  small 
boys  may  learn  how  Sandow  :got  ni's  mU3cle;  upj 
and  young  men  may  discover  how  the  best  peo- 
ple in  Paris  and  London  dress.  Indeed,  if  one 
will  look  with  sufficient  care,  one  may  find  out 
how  some  men  write  their  sermons,  and  what 
some  of  the  latest  religious  fads  are.  A  news- 
paper publisher  in  one  of  our  largest  cities  told 
me  the  reason  he  published  a  Sunday  edition 
was  because  it  paid  best  of  all  his  editions.  Our 
baseball  games  take  up  Sunday  afternoon  and 
thus  afford  opportunity  to  a  great  many  who 
work  so  hard  during  the  week  that  they  are  too 
tired  to  go  to  church  on  Sunday  to  get  out  into  the 
fresh  air  and  breathe  in  the  sweetened  atmos- 
phere which  surrounds  the  average  company  of 
baseball  enthusiasts,  and  hear  their  uplifting  con- 
versation, which  will  fit  his  soul  for  his  eternal 
home. 

I  am  risking  some  charge  of  trifling  in  dealing 
with  a  serious  matter  that  I  may  accent  to  my- 
self and  to  others  the  knowledge  which  we  all 
have  that  most  of  the  violations  of  the  Sabbath 


102      THE  FOURTH  COMMANDMENT 

day  in  large  way  are  traceable  to  the  prevailing 
lust  of  money.  Our  business  houses  are  open,  or 
demand  the  presence  of  employees,  so  that  there 
may  be  more  money  made,  not  so  that  there  may 
be  a  better  service  of  the  people.  Street  cars  are 
run,  not  that  peoplre  may  go  to  church  and  run 
about  on  the  errands  of  the  Lord,  but  that  there 
may  be  more  money  at  the  end  of  the  week. 
Baseball  parks  are  not  opened  so  that  tired  peo- 
ple may  rest,  but  so  that  the  managers  and 
players  may  make  money.  It  is  greed  versus 
godliness,  and  we  have  no  need  to  blink  the  fact 
between  ourselves.  The  Sabbath  is  not  being 
observed  more  loosely  in  the  interest  of  the 
better  life  of  the  nation,  but  against  that  interest, 
and  in  the  service  of  our  commercial  spirit. 
That  is  the  fact  on  the  side  of  the  men  who 
violate  it  in  the  large  way.  On  the  side  of  those 
who  practice  the  violations  which  these  make 
possible,  the  Sabbath  is  regarded  as  a  day  in 
which  one's  own  will  is  the  thing  to  consider. 
That  it  is  God's  day,  and  that  the  Son  of  Man 
is  Lord  of  it,  we  are  overlooking.  We  ask 
whether  we  have  not  a  right  to  go  to  a  ball 
game,  or  the  theatre,  if  we  want  to,  and  the 
reply  is  that  we  have  no  right  to  use  God's  time, 
except  as  God  approves.     Suppose  a  man  who  is 


PRESENT  SABBATH  OBSERVANCE     103 

employed  in  your  office  left  there  every  afternoon 
at  three  o>  clock  and  accompanied  his  wife  to  the 
theatre,  or  went  to  the  ball  game.  You  would  be 
apt  to  say,  "  Your  time  at  that  hour  belongs  to 
me,  and  you  are  not  to  consult  your  own  pleasure 
in  it ;  it  is  my  time,  and  I  direct  your  use  of  it" 
If  then  you  found  him  persisting  in  his  habit,  you 
would  realize  that  he  did  not  recognize  your 
authority.  Which  is  precisely  the  situation  re- 
garding the  present  Sabbath  observance.  Thou- 
sands of  men  do  not  care  what  God  wants,  nor 
think  it  makes  much  difference  to  them.  They 
have  repudiated  His  authority.  They  take  the 
time  which  He  has  set  apart  for  certain  uses  and 
use  it  in  another  way  and  are  much  aggrieved  if 
in  His  name  objection  is  raised.  It  is  not  that 
we  really  need  the  Sabbath  for  the  kind  of  thing 
to  which  we  devote  it ;  it  is  that  we  want  to  do 
that  sort  of  thing.  It  is  not  that  we  believe  it  is 
the  wish  of  Christ  that  we  use  it  in  this  way  ;  it 
is  simply  our  wish  to  use  it  so.  We  are  doing 
our  pleasure  on  His  holy  day. 

Put  those  two  facts  side  by  side,  that  on  the 
one  hand  some  men  are  not  content  with  six  days 
for  money  making  and  business,  and  on  the 
other  hand  that  other  men  want  to  use  God's 
special  time  in  their  own  way  without  reference 


104      THE  FOUETH  COMMANDMENT 

to  Him,  and  you  have  Sabbath  violation  very 
folly  explained.  That  is,  the  necessities  of  latter 
day  civilization  cut  a  very  small  figure  in  the 
case,  spite  of  the  amount  of  attention  we  give  to 
them.  If  we  were  willing  to  use  God's  time  in 
God's  way,  we  could  do  it. 

The  Sabbath  has  a  sanitary  and  physical  aspect 
It  is  a  necessity  to  the  life  we  ought  to  live.  Be- 
cause of  that,  the  state  must  deal  with  it.  Therein 
lies  the  justification  of  Sabbath  laws.  In  this 
country  the  state  may  not  attempt  anything  that 
looks  like  regulating  religion,  but  it  may  not 
proceed  without  recognizing  religion.  There  is  a 
vast  difference  between  regulation  and  recogni- 
tion. It  is  to  the  interest  of  the  state  that  men 
have  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body  ;  it  is  to  the 
interest  of  the  state  that  men  keep  clear  ideas 
about  God  ;  it  is  to  the  interest  of  the  state  that 
men  worship  God.  But  the  state  can  do  nothing 
directly  to  bring  either  end  to  pass.  All  it  can  do 
is  to  make  each  of  them  possible  by  means  of  wise 
laws.  No  man  can  retain  his  spiritual  life  when 
he  is  denied  the  opportunity  of  worship  with 
others  of  like  faith.  The  state  may  not  tell  him 
to  worship,  nor  prescribe  how  he  shall  do  so,  but 
it  may  say  to  any  other  man,  "  You  may  not  pre- 
vent his  doing  so."     It  may  make  religion  pos- 


PBESENT  SABBATH  OBSEKVAKCE     105 

sible  to  all  men.  That  is,  it  may  say  to  business 
employers,  "If  you  do  not  care  to  worship,  that 
is  your  affair,  but  you  may  not  adopt  any  policy 
of  business  which  will  make  it  impossible  for  men 
who  are  dependent  on  you  to  worship. "  It  may 
say  to  other  men,  "  You  may  have  no  zeal  for  the 
tone  of  public  morality  ;  you  may  not  recognize 
the  existence  or  the  rights  of  God  among  men  ; 
but  you  may  do  nothing  on  the  Sabbath  which 
will  help  to  lower  that  tone  nor  dull  men's  minds 
to  Him."  But  it  may  go  farther  than  that.  It 
may  recognize  the  necessity  for  a  rest  day  for  all 
its  people  on  the  ground  of  the  national  welfare. 
And  therefore  it  may  restrict  the  wish  of  men  who 
do  not  see  that  necessity  and  who  would  exploit 
the  public  for  their  own  advantage.  It  may  re- 
quire all  men  to  give  their  employees  their  full 
Sabbath,  where  a  true  necessity  or  mercy  does 
not  forbid.  It  may  set  men  free  on  that  day. 
For  the  Sabbath  is  no  restriction  on  the  rights  of 
men.  It  is  a  great  boon  which  men  may  well 
guard  jealously. 

There  was  a  certain  lad  who  was  counted  too 
small  to  carry  the  wood  into  the  cellar  from  the 
yard.  One  day  his  father  offered  him  a  dollar  to 
carry  in  a  cord  of  wood,  which  he  did  by  strenu- 
ous effort  and  much  weariness.    When  he  had 


106      THE  FOUBTH  COMMANDMENT 

finished,  grateful  that  the  task  was  done,  he  went 
to  his  father  and  received  his  dollar.  Then  his 
father  said:  "I  see  you  are  large  enough  to 
carry  in  the  wood  when  there  is  a  dollar  in  sight ;  I 
think  you  are  large  enough  to  carry  it  in  hereafter 
without  any  dollar."  It  is  not  always  wise  to  do 
for  personal  profit  the  thing  one  does  not  want  to 
be  forced  to  do.  And  no  fight  of  men  deserves 
more  hearty  sympathy  from  Christian  people  or 
people  who  love  their  fellows  than  that  which 
men  wage  for  their  Sabbath  rest.  It  is  in  the 
line  of  seven  days'  work  that  slavery  lies,  and  the 
depression  of  men  into  serfs.  With  much  that 
labouring  men  are  calling  for,  we  may  not  all  of 
us  be  in  sympathy,  but  with  that  we  cannot  fail 
to  sympathize.  In  that  fight  the  state  may  wisely 
take  a  hand. 

But  that  is  not,  of  course,  the  chief  aspect  of 
the  Sabbath.  Laws  may  permit  a  great  many 
things  which  it  is  not  right  to  do.  Indeed,  the 
law  cannot  reach  the  heart  of  the  matter.  The 
law  could  close  the  theatres  and  the  saloons  and 
the  ball  parks  and  the  stores  and  the  factories — 
can  do  it,  and  might  wisely  do  it,  and  so  make 
possible  a  Sabbath  of  worship,  but  no  law  could 
make  a  man  keep  the  Sabbath  day  holy  to  God. 
For  the  important  aspect  of  the  Sabbath  is  the 


PBESENT  SABBATH  OBSEEVANCE     107 

personal  one.  It  is  that  aspect  which  now 
concerns  us.  How  ought  we  to  observe  the  Sab- 
bath? 

You  have  noted  the  word  with  which  the  com- 
mand opens :  ( l  Eemember. ' '  That  is  frank  rec- 
ognition that  there  will  be  diverting  arguments. 
It  will  be  easy  to  forget,  easy  to  become  engrossed 
with  other  matters  and  so  lose  our  sense  of  the 
holiness  of  the  day.  Whatever  your  theory 
about  the  Sabbath  day  and  what  you  may  or  may 
not  do  in  it,  be  sure  that  you  remember  that  it  is 
a  day  to  be  kept  holy  to  God.  It  is  striking  that 
no  other  commandment  opens  in  this  way.  There 
is  no  danger  that  we  will  forget  that  we  must  not 
kill  and  steal  and  lie.  We  know  with  no  one's 
reminder  that  we  must  not  But  we  are  strangely 
ready  to  confuse  ourselves  regarding  the  Sabbath 
day.  It  is  well  that  the  word  is  "remember," 
You  are  busy  and  you  have  these  demands  and 
those  calls  and  you  are  responsible  for  this  thing 
and  that — yes,  yes,  all  that,  but  "  remember M 
whatever  the  rush  of  your  life  and  whatever  the 
burden  you  bear,  "Eemember  the  Sabbath  day 
to  keep  it  holy." 

Consider  two  items  from  the  commandment : 
First,  that  this  is  a  day  of  rest.  It  looked  back 
first  to  the  resting  of  God  from  His  work  of 


108      THE  FOUETH  COMMANDMENT 

creation.  Not  that  God's  activity  in  the  world 
ceased  and  He  no  longer  did  anything.  The  ac- 
tivities of  God  are  constant  to  this  hour.  That 
is  the  word  of  Jesus,  ' '  My  Father  worketh  to 
this  hour  and  I  work."  But  the  thing  He  was 
doing  till  that  time  of  rest,  He  then  ceased. 
Creation  ended,  however  providence  continued. 
And  our  Sabbath  is  not  meant  to  be  a  day  of 
mere  inactivity,  of  indolence.  It  is  a  day  of  rest 
from  the  employments  and  recreations  that  occupy 
our  strength  and  time  on  other  days.  It  is  the 
time  for  bringing  into  play  a  new  set  of  muscles. 
It  is  the  divinely  appointed  break  in  the  grind 
of  life.  Some  one  compares  it  to  the  ratchet  on 
the  wheel  which  prevents  its  running  back  when 
it  stops  a  moment.  The  Sabbath  is  meant  to 
change  our  routine,  to  break  into  it  and  give  us  a 
new  angle  of  vision  upon  our  lives.  We  do  not 
get  it  by  doing  nothing.  We  get  it  by  resting, 
by  bringing  other  lines  of  activity  into  place. 
Periodicity  is  stamped  on  our  lives.  Our  wants 
recur,  and  any  effort  to  replace  the  divinely  ap- 
pointed period  of  labour  and  of  rest  with  an  arti- 
ficial one  has  been  a  failure.  You  remember 
that  the  Eoman  cycle  was  of  eight  days,  but  it 
fell  into  seven  under  Hebrew  and  Christian  in- 
fluence.   You  remember  that  France  introduced 


PEESENT  SABBATH  OBSEEVANCE     109 

the  cycle  of  ten  days,  but  after  twelve  years 
came  again  to  the  seven  day  cycle.  If  a  man  will 
honestly  rest  for  one  day,  he  can  carry  the  bur- 
den of  his  life  for  six  days.  But  no  man  can 
work  seven  days  in  a  week  and  serve  God  accept- 
ably. Men  who  work  steadily  seven  days  in  a 
week  are  not  what  they  are  meant  to  be  and  do 
not  do  what  they  are  meant  to  do.  God  will  not 
have  it  so.  His  law  cannot  be  trifled  with. 
That  is  so  with  any  kind  of  work. 

There  are  students  who  think  they  need  to 
study  on  the  Sabbath.  Let  it  be  urged  first  of  all 
that  no  student  needs  to  study  if  he  uses  the  rest 
of  his  time  as  he  ought.  Of  course  he  can  find 
use  for  Sunday  studying  if  he  spends  other  time 
over  which  he  has  control  for  his  own  uses.  But 
it  is  very  poor  religion  to  spend  Saturday  for 
one's  own  pleasure  or  that  of  one's  friends,  or 
even  in  domestic  duties,  leaving  no  time  for 
study,  expecting  to  use  the  time  which  God  has 
set  apart  for  other  things,  to  introduce  into  it 
the  grind  of  one's  week-day  life.  That  is  robbing 
God.  It  is  robbing  one's  self  also,  for  the  Sun- 
day hours  are  needed  for  the  purposes  to  which 
God  has  set  them  apart.  And  a  student  needs 
the  rest  of  the  complete  day  of  release  from  daily 
study,  which  is  quite  as  much  his  daily  toil  as 


110      THE  FOURTH  COMMANDMENT 

tending  the  counter  is  the  daily  toil  of  some 
others. 

There  are  men  who  feel  that  they  must  do 
some  of  their  business  on  Sunday.  They  must 
go  to  the  office  a  little  while  on  Sunday  morning. 
They  must  see  to  the  mail.  They  must  get  things 
in  condition  so  that  it  will  not  take  so  long  to 
get  started  Monday  morning.  They  must  take  a 
little  time  Sunday  afternoon  to  look  over  an  im- 
portant batch  of  papers.  Well,  whatever  argu- 
ment there  may  be  for  doing  these  things,  and 
breaking  in  on  the  Sabbath  day,  it  is  utterly  un- 
wise ;  it  is  thoroughly  dangerous.  The  more  I 
talk  with  men  about  it,  and  the  more  I  hear 
about  the  average  two  hours  of  necessary  Sunday 
business,  the  clearer  I  am  that  it  is  not  necessary 
and  that  the  apparent  necessity  could  be  removed 
if  they  cared  very  much  to  remove  it.  I  am 
content  just  now  with  that  one  word,  "Bemem- 
ber."  Be  clear  on  this,  that  a  man  endangers, 
injures  his  spiritual  life  by  any  such  course.  He 
brings  into  the  day  set  apart  for  rest  the  things 
that  have  wearied  him  in  the  week.  No  man 
can  keep  himself  open-hearted  to  God  while  he 
is  qualifying  his  obedience  of  His  law.  But  re- 
member this,  too.  "We  open  the  flood  gates  when 
we  make  this  little  break  in  the  barrier  between 


PRESENT  SABBATH  OBSERVANCE     111 

the  Sabbath  and  the  rest  of  the  week.  Most 
business  men  count  themselves  the  victims  of 
conditions  which  were  framed  when  they  went 
into  business.  Perhaps  they  are,  but  they  be- 
come agents  in  perpetuating  those  conditions  if 
they  fall  in  with  them.  As  a  victim  of  adverse 
conditions,  a  man  is  worthy  of  all  respect.  As 
an  agent  to  perpetuate  and  magnify  those  con- 
ditions, his  position  is  quite  other.  There  is 
more  Sunday  work  now  than  there  ever  was  be- 
fore. That  is  because  men  just  like  ourselves  did 
not  say  No,  when  the  opportunity  came  for  Sun- 
day work  years  ago.  The  hope  of  the  coming 
Sabbath  is  in  such  men  as  a  well-known  railroad 
official,  official  also  in  one  of  our  Christian 
churches,  who  has  said  No  regarding  long  lines 
of  freight  cars,  and  has  found  that  he  can  reduce 
Sunday  business  very  largely  even  under  adverse 
conditions. 

Some  of  you  will  remember  that  your  first 
Sunday  work  caused  you  something  of  a  pang. 
You  felt  that  it  was  not  quite  right ;  you  even 
resented  it  a  little.  You  have  lost  that  sense; 
you  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  it  grows  on 
you  somewhat.  That  is  the  tendency.  It  is  the 
downward  tendency ;  there  is  no  doubt  of  that. 
And  I  am  anxious  for  some  of  you  and  for  those 


112      THE  FOUETH  COMMANDME1ST 

who  will  come  after  you.  You  are  getting  the  af- 
fairs of  your  business,  or  you  are  helping  others 
to  get  the  affairs  of  your  business  in  such  con- 
dition that  it  will  be  more  and  more  demanding 
of  Sabbath  work,  and  those  who  come  after  you 
will  find  it  harder  than  you  will  now  find  it  to 
change  the  whole  system  in  which  you  are 
caught.  You  are  endangering  the  future  Sabbath 
for  men  who  will  come  after  you  are  gone.  If 
your  business  prosperity  calls  for  a  little  Sunday 
work  because  of  the  strenuous  conditions  under 
which  your  work  is  done,  why  may  not  their 
prosperity  demand  the  entire  day?  There  are 
men  already  giving  practically  the  whole  day  to 
their  business,  and  they  say  just  what  you  say  to 
explain  the  little  you  do.  I  beg  you  consider, 
simply  from  the  fact  that  God  means  the  day  to 
be  a  day  of  rest,  whether  you  are  on  the  safe 
side. 

But  this  is  not  the  most  pressing  phase  of  the 
Sabbath.  It  is  meant  to  be  a  day  of  holy  rest. 
It  is  a  Sabbath  unto  the  Lord  your  God.  In  the 
word  of  Jesus,  it  is  a  day  made  for  man,  for  that 
which  makes  a  man  a  man  and  not  a  brute.  It  is 
a  day  intended  to  serve  our  spiritual  lives,  not 
our  physical  lives  principally  or  only.  Our 
physical  rest  we  must  have,  not  alone  for  the 


PEESENT  SABBATH  OBSEEVANCE     113 

work  to  which  the  will  of  God  calls  us  six  days  in 
the  week,  but  most  essentially  for  the  reviving  of 
the  spiritual  lives  which  are  the  crowning  fact  of 
our  manhood.  The  great  appeal  of  the  day  is  not 
to  our  brute  side.  It  is  to  that  side  whereon  we 
are  allied  to  God.  It  is  the  day  of  "  renewing  ac- 
quaintance with  God."  The  man  who  leaves 
God  out  and  does  not  make  it  a  holy  day  has  not 
observed  God's  Sabbath,  whatever  he  has  done  or 
left  undone.  Into  the  materializing  tendencies  of 
this  day  there  comes  the  powerful  appeal  of  the 
Sabbath,  reminding  us  that  there  are  eternal  in- 
terests which  have  first  right  with  us.  Six  days 
of  the  cry  of  the  world  in  our  ears  !  One  day  of 
the  cry  of  heaven  and  the  eternal  life  !  And  how 
such  a  day  is  needed  !  Eecall  the  familiar  car- 
toon of  the  trusts— a  great  bloated,  distended 
body  surmouDted  by  a  little  head.  It  is  the  peril 
of  our  times,  the  peril  that  we  make  to  ourselves 
great  material  possessions,  while  our  souls  shrivel, 
the  peril  that  we  shall  become  important  to  our 
fellows  because  of  what  we  have,  and  then  find 
ourselves  of  no  importance  in  that  place  whose 
people  do  not  ask  what  a  man  has,  but  what  he 
is.  The  Sabbath  comes  into  our  hard  lives  to 
train  the  head  and  heart  in  the  things  of  the 
eternal  life.     And  yet,  how  strangely  it  is  used. 


114      THE  FOUKTH  COMMANDMENT 

There  are  thousands  who  use  it  for  a  day  of  a  lit- 
tle more  sleeping  and  a  little  more  eating,  use  it 
for  a  day  that  serves  the  brute  side  of  them  a  lit- 
tle more  fully  than  other  days.  Is  not  this  the 
program  of  many  a  man  for  the  Sabbath  day,  of 
many  a  being  with  eternal  life  to  live  and  to  pre- 
pare for— Sleep  until  9:30,  drowsy  all  day  because 
of  it,  tracing  that  to  the  business  of  the  past  week 
which  is  not  its  cause  ;  three  great  morning  papers 
before  noon,  whereby  all  the  flood  of  secular  life 
sweeps  over  the  soul,  leaving  its  deposits  which 
are  discussed  with  friends ;  a  heavy  dinner  at  1:00, 
a  nap  of  an  hour  or  two,  a  stroll  on  the  boulevard 
or  a  drive  in  the  park,  a  visit  with  friends,  an 
evening  of  chatting  about  anything  but  spiritual 
things — and  no  thought  of  God,  no  act  of  realiza- 
tion of  Him,  all  temporal  things,  all  material 
things,  nothing  that  fits  a  man  to  face  eternity, 
nothing  that  sends  him  back  to  the  Monday  work 
with  a  clearer  sense  of  the  Father  of  his  life  in 
whose  services  he  is  to  spend  the  week.  Are  the 
things  which  fill  the  day  wicked  things!  Are 
they  sinful?  Is  he  breaking  any  law!  The 
questions  are  idle,  beside  the  real  one— is  he 
keeping  the  Sabbath  day  holy  ?  Is  he  making  it 
the  day  of  his  spiritual  life  ?  Is  he  keeping  it  a 
Sabbath  unto  the  Lord  his  God  ?    That  is  the  test 


7 


PBESENT  SABBATH  OBSEKVANCE     115 

question.  And  that  is  the  question  about  the 
things  which  we  so  love  to  discuss.  Shall  we 
take  a  walk  in  the  park,  shall  we  drive,  shall  we 
call  on  our  friends,  shall  we  read  the  magazines, 
shall  we  play  this  game  or  not,  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  debated  matters.  Each  of  them  involves 
the  same  principle  as  the  others.  Is  this  the  way 
to  make  the  day  holy  unto  the  Lord  ?  Is  it  the 
way  to  make  the  most  of  the  one  day  set  apart 
for  eternal  things  I  During  the  reign  of  James  I, 
the  diversion  of  the  fine  ladies  was  a  fancy  work 
called  knotting,  something  like  the  netting  of  the 
present  day.  A  company  once  asked  Bishop 
Neale  whether  ladies  might  properly  employ 
their  hands  on  the  Sabbath  day  in  knotting. 
Very  shrewdly  he  replied,  "  They  may  (k)  not," 
and  they  could  not  tell  whether  he  meant  a  "k  " 
on  the  word  or  no.  It  might  be  easy  to  settle  the 
case  of  this  single  pursuit  or  that,  but  a  far  better 
thing  for  all  of  us  is  the  great  law  that  the  Sab- 
bath day  is  the  day  for  our  spiritual  lives,  and  in 
it  we  are  to  do  the  things  which  help  forward 
those  spiritual  lives.  It  is  not  the  day  for  our  in- 
tellectual lives,  nor  for  our  social  lives,  nor  for 
our  physical  lives  primarily.  It  is  the  day  for 
all  those  phases  of  our  lives,  but  as  they  bear  on 
the  eternal  life  which  we  are  all  seeking  to  live. 


116      THE  FOUETH  COMMANDMENT 

It  is  the  Sabbath  of  the  Lord  our  God.  It  is  the 
day  to  renew  our  connection  with  the  things 
which  are  most  worthy  of  our  eternal  lives.  It 
is  to  preserve  our  manhood,  to  keep  us  from  be- 
coming coloured  at  heart  with  the  dye  in  which 
our  hands  are  working,  that  the  Sabbath  is  given 
us. 

Three  direct  words  of  suggestion  will  close  the 
study : 

1.  Let  it  be  said  very  earnestly  to  young  men 
and  women,  that  the  Sabbath  stands  at  the  part- 
ing of  the  ways  in  the  lives  of  such  as  they  are. 
Its  observance  measures  the  development  of  the 
spiritual  life.  Those  who  have  come  from  places 
of  less  excitement  and  inducement  to  Sabbath 
violation  are  in  peculiar  danger  in  the  city.  The 
strictness  of  the  former  observance  is  so  utterly 
lacking  that  it  is  easy  to  fall  out  of  it.  Usually  the 
non-observance  of  the  day  begins  very  gradually, 
and  seems  defensible,  but  it  is  the  beginning,  and 
the  end  is  not  far  away.  Guard  all  the  hours  of 
the  day  jealously.  You  can  afford  to  be  over- 
cautious rather  than  careless.  Keep  the  day  for 
the  purpose  for  which  it  was  given — for  rest  and 
for  the  culture  of  real  manhood. 

2.  Let  it  be  urged  that  the  Sabbath  be  taken 
as  a  joy,  and  not  as  a  bondage.  We  parents  are 
at  fault  in  our  treatment  of  our  children  on  that 


PEESENT  SABBATH  OBSEBVANCE     117 

day.  We  ought  to  be  able  to  devise  ways 
whereby  we  may  make  it  an  attractive  day  to 
them.  They  might  have  specially  attractive 
games,  which  are  sacredly  reserved  for  that  one 
day.  They  might  have  special  attention  from 
mothers  and  fathers  which  is  not  possible  on 
other  days.  If  we  really  seek  them,  we  shall 
find  ways  to  make  Sabbath  the  great  day  of  the 
week  and  not  the  longest  day  for  them.  If  we 
devote  the  day  ourselves  to  yawning  and  sleeping 
and  wishing  it  were  over,  and  if  we  take  its 
hours  as  the  longest  of  our  lives,  or  chafe  under 
its  wise  restrictions,  then  we  have  mistaken  its 
meaning.  The  prophet  calls  us  to  make  the  Sab- 
bath a  delight.  It  simply  is  not  that  to  a  great 
many  people,  but  until  it  is,  it  is  not  fully  ob- 
served. 

3.  Then  let  me  plead  for  the  custom  of  the 
older  Jewish  regime,  whereby  the  preceding 
evening  becomes  a  time  of  preparation  for  the 
day  itself.  You  remember  it  was  the  custom  for 
the  day  to  begin  at  the  preceding  sunset.  In  the 
early  homes  of  some  of  us,  Saturday  evening  was 
the  time  for  getting  everything  in  readiness  for 
the  morning  of  the  Sabbath.  There  was  never 
any  rush  ;  we  did  not  have  to  hurry  and  run  here 
and  there  in  order  to  get  ready  for  the  day.  It 
wai  the  quietest,  least  hurried  morning  of  th% 


118      THE  FOTJETH  COMMANDMENT 

week  because  it  had  been  anticipated,  and  every- 
thing was  ready  for  it.  Moreover  the  evening 
before  was  kept  free  from  burdensome  social  en- 
gagements. There  was  no  restriction  placed  on 
it,  save  as  it  might  be  helpful  to  the  next  day. 
But  it  is  poor  economy,  both  of  time  and  strength 
to  let  the  evening  before  our  day  of  holy  rest  be 
one  which  runs  us  far  on  into  the  night  and  leaves 
us  exhausted  the  next  day.  When  we  do  such 
things,  let  us  be  done  blaming  our  daily  work ; 
it  is  our  Saturday  night  pleasure  instead  that 
wears  us  out,  and  requires  that  we  sleep  away  the 
Sabbath  hours,  so  that  it  is  such  a  hardship  to 
keep  the  day.  Sir  William  Get  1,  throwing  aside 
his  official  robe  at  night,  said,  "Lie  there,  Lord 
Treasurer. "  So  we  throw  aside  the  week,  "Lie 
there,  world,  business,  temporalities  j  lie  there." 
And  in  the  morning  we  wake  just  sons  of  God  to 
meet  our  Father  afresh. 

Of  the  future  life  we  are  told  nothing  more 
definite  than  that  it  shall  be  in  fullest  sense  what 
the  well-spent  Sabbath  is  here  on  the  earth. 
There  remaineth  a  Sabbath  rest  for  the  people  of 
God.  It  will  be  a  time  of  close  fellowship  with 
God,  of  free  communion  with  Him,  of  the  de- 
velopment and  culture  of  the  whole  man.  God 
grant  us  grace  to  keep  each  earthly  Sabbath  in 
such  wise  as  will  fit  us  for  that  eternal  Sabbath  ! 


VI 

\>"  PRESENT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE 

(The  Fifth  Commandment) 

Honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother  :  that  thy  days  may  be  long 
upon  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee. — EX- 
ODUS 20  :  12. 

Whether  this  commandment  belongs  in  the 
first  table,  as  one  of  the  duties  men  owe  to  God, 
or  in  the  second  table,  as  one  of  their  social  duties, 
has  been  subject  for  much  discussion.  For  my- 
self, I  place  it  in  the  second  table,  without  for- 
getting the  wise  word  which  is  said  about  it  by 
those  who  place  it  in  the  first  table,  that  a  child's 
first  realization  of  God  is  in  his  parents.  Most 
that  God  means  later  to  a  man,  his  parents  mean 
in  large  measure  to  a  child.  It  is  suggestive  at 
any  rate  that  it  stands  first  among  the  command- 
ments which  affect  our  relation  to  our  fellows. 
The  unit  of  society  is  not  the  individual  but 
the  family.  Every  man  enters  the  world  in  a 
social  circle  of  at  least  three — his  father  and  his 
mother  and  himself.  However  that  circle  may  be 
widened,  or  however  its  bonds  may  be  broken  by 
119 


120        THE  FIFTH  COMMANDMENT 

physical  absence  or  death,  the  social  meaning  of 
it  is  never  altered.  The  family  continues  to  be 
the  unit  of  society.  Government  started  there 
and  still  starts  there.  Discipline  began  there  and 
still  begins  there.  The  law  which  touches  the 
family  is  necessarily  a  fundamental  one.  This  is 
the  law  of  the  family  :  Honour  thy  father  and 
thy  mother.  We  may  not  stop  to  point  out  how 
the  commandment  changed  family  relations  from 
the  day  of  its  writing,  in  that  the  mother  took 
her  place  by  the  father  for  equal  honour  from  the 
son.  Enough  that  now  we  shall  see  that  that 
social  circle  is  to  be  one  maintained  on  the  basis 
of  honour. 

The  commandment  has  another  preeminence  in 
that  it  is  the  first  one  with  promise.  The  second 
and  fourth  commandments  both  have  explana- 
tions ;  the  third  has  a  warning  j  the  fifth  is  the 
only  one  which  contains  promise.  It  amounts, 
you  see,  to  a  plea  for  conservatism  :  Honour  thy 
father  and  thy  mother,  that  thy  days  may  be 
long  upon  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth 
thee.  As  we  saw  in  the  study  of  the  second  com- 
mandment, this  is  no  arbitrary  promise.  It  is 
not  like  a  promise  which  you  make  of  a  bit  of 
candy  to  a  child  for  doing  an  act  utterly  disas- 
sociated from  your  reward.     It  is  a  statement  of 


PEESENT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE       121 

the  great  law  of  life.  Violent  breaks  between  the 
present  and  the  past  always  endanger  the  future. 
It  is  when  the  present  takes  account  of  the  virtues 
of  the  past  and  pays  to  that  past  the  honour  which 
it  deserves  that  it  insures  the  future.  There  is  a 
period  in  our  lives  when  we  are  contemptuous  of 
old  notions.  There  is  a  spirit  which  takes  pos- 
session of  a  whole  nation  at  times,  which  makes 
it  iconoclastic,  eager  to  destroy  the  old  traditions 
and  the  old  notions.  That  spirit  is  never  a  safe 
one.  It  may  work  out  into  something  good,  but 
before  it  has  finished  its  work  it  will  wreck  the 
man,  the  nation,  or  else  a  way  will  appear  to 
gather  up  the  good  things  of  the  past  and  use 
them  in  the  present  life. 

The  commandment  doubtless  applies  beyond 
the  family  and  touches  the  national  life.  It  is 
not,  of  course,  the  entire  explanation  of  the  fact, 
but  it  is  at  least  suggestive  that  the  oldest  nation 
with  a  continuous  history  in  the  world  to-day  is 
the  one  in  which  this  commandment  is  the  su- 
preme law  of  social  organization.  I  make  no 
comment  upon  the  Chinese  save  upon  the  con- 
tinuity of  their  present  social  order.  Beside  that 
order  our  own  nation  is  an  infant  of  this  morn- 
ing^ birth.  And  at  the  very  rock  foundation  of 
the  social  order  lies  this  honouring  of  ancestors. 


122        THE  FIFTH  COMMANDMENT 

The  commandment  in  its  very  verbiage  suggests 
that  when  the  Lord  God  gives  us  the  land  He 
means  us  to  hold  it  by  faithfulness  to  the  past 
while  still  we  are  to  reach  out  into  the  larger 
future.  It  is  no  plea  for  such  conservatism  as 
forbids  growth.  It  is  a  plea  for  that  conservatism 
which  forbids  cutting  loose  from  the  past. 

Moreover,  the  commandment  is  doubtless  wider 
in  its  appeal  than  simply  the  circle  of  the  family. 
The  Westminster  catechism  is  correct  in  saying 
that  it  calls  for  the  preserving  of  honour,  and 
performing  the  duties  belonging  to  everyone  in 
their  various  plans  and  relations  as  superiors, 
inferiors,  and  equals.  It  means  that  in  all  our 
relations,  both  upward  and  downward,  there 
shall  be  a  basal  principle  of  honour. 

Both  those  broad  statements  of  law  are  surely 
true.  It  does  apply  to  national  life.  It  does 
apply  to  the  entire  social  circle.  The  need  of 
this  hour,  however,  is  not  for  accent  on  either  of 
those  implications,  but  on  the  very  heart  of  the 
commandment.  This  is  a  plea  for  the  care  of  the 
home.  Principal  Fairbairn  is  right  in  saying 
that  the  recovery  of  the  home  is  the  final  neces- 
sity of  the  situation.  One  of  our  present 
students  of  social  conditions  and  evils  has  just 
now  said  that  the  only  substitute  for  the  saloon  is 


PRESENT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE       123 

the  home.  And  surely  for  any  one  who  looks 
upon  some  homes  there  is  little  need  for  further 
explanation  of  the  falling  of  men  into  dissipation 
and  sin.  When  a  man  comes  to  his  home  and  it 
consists  of  one  or  two  small,  ill-smelling  rooms, 
crowded  with  cheap  and  filthy  furnishings,  with 
no  comfort  nor  possibilities  of  comfort,  and  not 
far  away  is  a  brightly  lighted  and  airy  saloon 
with  genial  companions,  it  is  small  wonder,  even 
though  it  continues  to  be  a  great  pity,  that  he 
finds  his  way  there,  and  goes  farther  than  he 
meant  to  go.  He  is  arrantly  selfish  in  doing  it  of 
course.  His  wife  cannot  go.  He  leaves  her  in 
those  small  stuffy  rooms.  And  into  the  support 
of  that  light  and  airy  room  of  the  saloon  goes 
money  which  might  go  at  least  some  distance 
towards  securing  rooms  of  similar  character  for 
his  own  family.  It  is  selfish  but  it  is  very 
natural. 

The  need  for  the  home  appears  also  to  any  one 
who  will  walk  the  city  streets  in  the  late 
evenings.  A  wave  of  shame  and  indignation 
swept  over  the  land  during  a  recent  summer  as 
we  discovered  what  was  being  lost  through 
neglect  of  the  home.  A  girl  of  thirteen  died 
in  childbirth,  a  dozen  children  were  found  in 
places  of  shame,  gangs  of  small  boys  were  dis- 


124        THE  FIFTH  COMMAOT)MENT 

covered.  Lay  the  blame  as  much  as  we  will  on 
the  churches,  or  the  police  force.  After  they 
have  had  their  share  of  the  blame,  the  fact  is 
that  the  great  burden  of  it  lies  on  parents  who 
have  so  little  care  for  their  children  that  there 
is  no  home  established,  and  that  their  children 
may  do  as  they  please. 

There  are  many  disintegrating  influences  at 
work  upon  the  home.  There  is  the  increasing 
diversity  of  interests  among  those  who  go  to 
make  up  any  single  home.  One  member  of  the 
family  is  deeply  engrossed  in  his  business,  he 
thinks  little  else,  he  takes  little  part  in  the  life  of 
the  home.  Another  is  interested  in  various  lines 
of  social  or  even  philanthropic  work,  she  has 
little  time  or  strength  for  anything  else  in  the 
home.  The  young  people  have  their  own  circles 
of  friendship  ;  friends  of  the  sons  are  often  en- 
tirely unknown  to  the  parents ;  the  daughters  have 
circles  of  acquaintance  and  friendship  of  whom 
parents  are  in  entire  ignorance,  not  because  sons 
or  daughters  have  concealed  their  associations 
but  because  the  family  life  has  grown  apart. 

Then  there  is  the  disintegrating  influence  of 
easy  removal  from  place  to  place.  It  is  incident 
to  the  increasing  apartment  life  of  the  city,  and 
the    increased   transportation    facilities  in    the 


PKESENT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE       126 

country.  It  is  a  very  simple  thing  to  move  out 
of  one  apartment  into  another,  and  to  tear  up  the 
very  roots  of  the  family  life.  Some  one  said  the 
other  day,  that  we  have  now  Bedouins  of  the 
Boulevards  and  Arabs  of  the  Avenues.  They 
fold  their  tents  and  silently  steal  away,  without 
any  real  upheaval  of  life  because  life  never  was 
settled  in  the  former  place.  All  that  breaks  up 
the  family  unity.  The  young  people  retain  their 
fellowships  in  the  other  place  or  else  the  parents 
do,  and  the  other  side  of  the  family  form  their 
new  connections  near  by.  The  result  is  that  the 
family  pulls  apart  in  its  interests. 

Then  there  is  the  disintegrating  influence  of 
our  over-emphasis  on  individuality.  We  are  in- 
sisting that  the  individual  is  first  to  be  considered. 
In  that  insistence  we  make  grave  mistake.  It 
results,  however,  in  each  one  forming  a  circle 
around  himself,  without  shaping  himself  to  the 
natural  circle  which  lies  in  the  family.  One  of 
my  medical  friends  says  it  is  not  at  all  uncommon 
for  the  four  members  of  a  family  to  have  each  a 
separate  physician,  and  never  to  think  of  calling 
the  father's  physician  to  treat  the  mother,  or 
the  son,  or  the  daughter.  Certainly  there  is  a 
tendency  to  diffuse  our  interests  until  we  hold 
but  few  in  common. 


126        THE  FIFTH  COMMANDMENT 

All  these  influences  and  a  good  many  others 
increase  the  need  for  this  commandment,  that 
the  home  shall  be  maintained,  and  that  the 
social  relations  which  are  natural  to  us  shall  be 
first  considered  before  we  talk  about  killing 
other  men  or  stealing  or  lying.  There  stands 
the  commandment  to  maintain  the  social  circle 
into  which  we  have  come  in  the  nature  of  things. 

You  have  doubtless  read  many  times  that  the 
great  discovery  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  the 
child,  and  notably  the  rights  of  the  child.  Let 
that  be  admitted,  and  then  let  us  emphasize  that 
in  our  enthusiasm  over  the  rights  of  the  child 
we  may  be  in  danger  of  forgetting  that  he  has 
duties  along  with  them.  Probably  there  never 
was  a  time  when  very  young  young-people  did 
not  know  it  all.  Sometimes  our  older  people  of 
the  present  day  remind  us  how  different  things 
were  in  their  day,  how  children  of  their  day 
were  always  respectful  and  obedient  and  un- 
obtrusive. Now  one  of  the  perils  of  looking  too 
far  back  is  that  we  are  inclined  to  remember 
things  which  are  really  not  quite  so.  It  would 
be  interesting  to  know  what  the  grandparents  of 
that  day  said  about  the  children  of  their  time. 
Probably  the  conditions  are  incident  to  our 
natural  growth.    It  is  no  pessimism,  therefore, 


PRESENT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE       127 

it  is  simply  fact,  to  say  that  there  is  a  current 
pertness,  self-assertiveness,  about  a  good  many 
of  the  children  and  young  young-people,  against 
which  this  command  stands  strongly.  There  are 
families  governed  from  the  bottom  and  not  from 
the  top.  The  children  have  the  reins.  The 
parents  are  out  of  date.  That  is  specially  the 
thought  of  a  good  many  lads  and  lasses  about 
their  mothers.  Fathers  are  a  little  more  apt  to 
be  rated  high.  Mothers,  just  because  they  are 
always  with  their  children  and  have  occasion  to 
express  a  good  many  more  opinions,  and  es- 
pecially because  to  them  fall  the  negatives  and 
discipline  which  children  dislike,  are  more  easily 
thought  of  as  unappreciative  and  uninformed. 
At  the  root  of  it  lies,  as  at  the  roof  of  most  wrong, 
simple  selfishness. 

There  is  need  for  a  very  urgent  word  to  a  good 
many  young  people  who  are  still  in  the  family 
life  about  their  proper  attitude  in  the  family. 
There  is  no  room  in  the  family  for  a  cowed  and 
whipped  spirit,  but  there  are  few  things  more 
repugnant  to  a  thoughtful  mind  than  a  boy  or 
girl  who  owes  every  comfort  and  convenience  and 
pleasure  to  parents,  pulling  against  the  limita- 
tions which  are  placed  over  him.  It  is  in  God's 
plan  that  we  outgrow  our  parents.    We  do  not 


128        THE  FIFTH  COMMANDMENT 

always  do  it,  and  we  never  do  it  until  long  after 
we  think  we  have  accomplished  it.  There  is  no 
girl  of  sixteen  who  is  apt  to  be  as  wise  as  her 
mother.  It  is  even  true  that  many  a  boy  of  six- 
teen does  not  know  as  much  as  his  father  does. 
Of  course  he  goes  to  a  better  school  than  his 
father  had ;  he  knows  perhaps  a  different  kind 
of  people  than  those  with  whom  his  father  mixes, 
but  aside  from  the  fact  that  his  father's  name  in 
most  cases  is  worth  considerably  more  at  the 
signature  end  of  a  check  than  his  own,  his  fa- 
ther has  also  the  merit  of  having  made  a  char- 
acter that  really  goes  farther  than  the  boy's  lack 
of  character.  That  can  be  said  with  perfect 
kindliness,  because  every  man  who  has  passed 
through  his  boyhood  has  had  to  learn  that  lesson 
for  himself.  It  would  be  to  our  great  happiness 
if  we  might  save  some  lads  the  regrets  which  we 
have  had  for  not  knowing  that  simple  thing. 
The  fact  is  that  the  place  of  a  child  in  a  home  is 
a  subordinate  place,  and  while  he  belongs 
entirely  within  the  family  circle  it  is  his  business 
to  look  up  to  those  who  are  the  heads  of  the 
home.  Look  up,  mind  you,  and  cease  crowding 
himself  into  the  place  where  he  does  not  belong 
when  he  begins  to  look  down  on  them  or  feela 
superior  to  them. 


PKESKNT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE       129 

That  is  really  what  honour  means.  It  means 
to  hold  the  proper  attitude  towards  those  who  are 
above  us,  to  recognize  their  higher  worth,  their 
greater  rights,  and  their  dignity  as  compared 
with  ourselves.  If  you  should  go  through  the 
valley  outside  Jerusalem,  where  the  tomb  of 
Absalom  is,  you  would  to  this  day  see  Jewish 
children  led  by  their  mothers  as  they  pass  that 
tomb  take  up  stones  and  cast  at  it.  That  is  done 
that  the  children  may  realize  the  shame  which 
all  the  ages  give  to  the  son  who  is  not  obedient 
to  his  father  when  that  father  is  worthy  of  his 
son.  James  IY  of  Scotland  took  up  arms 
against  his  father  and  fought  against  him. 
When  he  came  to  his  senses  and  knew  how  he 
had  dishonoured  himself  and  his  father  he  wound 
about  his  loins  a  chain,  to  which  he  added  one 
link  with  its  increasing  weight  every  year,  that 
he  might  realize  the  increasing  shame  that  comes 
upon  a  son  who  has  lifted  his  hand  against  his 
father.  When  Samuel  Johnson  was  a  lad  his 
father  kept  a  book  stall  in  Litchfield,  and  on 
market  days  used  to  have  an  open  stall  for  the 
sale  of  books.  One  day  he  was  ill  and  told  his 
son  to  go  and  care  for  that  public  stall  on  one 
market  day.  The  lad  was  just  forming  his 
circle  of  young  manhood  and  young  womanhood 


130       THE  FIFTH  COMMANDMENT 

friends,  and  was  ashamed  of  the  business  and 
the  publicity  of  it,  and  refused  to  go.  When  he 
also  came  to  himself,  and  realized  the  greater 
shame  of  blushing  to  do  the  thing  by  which  he 
and  his  father  lived,  even  when  he  had  come  to 
be  an  old  man  he  went  and  stood  with  bared  head, 
all  through  a  market  day  on  the  site  of  that  old 
stall,  that  he  might  do  that  measure  of  penance 
for  the  wrong  he  had  done. 

George  Washington  had  his  heart  set  on 
becoming  a  midshipman.  His  mother  much 
objected.  His  trunk  had  started,  was  on  the 
ship.  As  he  went  out  of  the  door,  his  mother 
gave  him  her  farewell,  but  with  the  word  that 
he  was  going  without  her  consent.  On  his  way 
to  the  ship  he  turned  suddenly  and  came  back, 
sent  orders  for  the  return  of  his  trunk,  and  when 
he  went  into  the  house  his  mother  said,  M  God 
will  bless  you,  my  son,  for  honouring  your 
mother.7'  The  blessing  came  in  the  honour  of 
the  whole  nation.  Of  all  the  things  told  of 
President  Garfield,  surely  there  is  none  finer  than 
that  scene  when  he  had  been  inaugurated  as  presi- 
dent, and  turned  with  a  kiss  of  affection  and  laid 
all  the  honour  of  the  event  at  the  feet  of  his 
mother.  The  army  and  navy  officials  are  agreed 
that  that  boy  is  always  best  safeguarded  who 
writes  to  his  mother  regularly.     And  I  have 


PBESENT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE       131 

gathered  these  familiar  incidents  together  only 
that  yon  may  see  how  possible  it  is  for  one  to 
live  the  nobler  life  while  still  recognizing  the 
dignity  and  worth  which  belongs  to  those  who 
are  our  superiors. 

Nor  can  the  commandment  ever  be  outgrown. 
Eemember  it  was  not  addressed  originally  to  a 
Sabbath-school  class,  nor  to  children.  It  was 
addressed  to  the  same  men  who  were  bid  to  keep 
the  other  commandments.  It  was  addressed  to 
men  who  were  gray  as  well  as  to  men  who  were 
young.  No  man  ever  grows  so  wise  or  so  great 
that  it  is  not  incumbent  upon  him  to  honour  his 
father  and  his  mother.  The  coming-of-age  in 
legal  sense  is  a  wise  limitation  upon  certain  lines 
of  obedience.  There  is  a  period  in  our  lives  when 
our  parents  have  right  to  command  us.  After 
that,  they  lose  the  right  to  command  and  demand 
obedience,  but  they  never  lose  the  right  to  claim 
our  honour.  One  of  the  most  difficult  duties  on 
the  part  of  parents  and  of  children  is  that  of 
passing  gracefully  from  entire  inferiority  to  some 
measure  of  equality.  It  is  one  of  the  most  delicate 
arts  of  which  parents  are  capable  that  the  trans- 
ition should  occur  without  the  recognition  of 
children.  That  it  can  occur  too  early  is  very 
sure  j  that  it  can  occur  too  late  is  also  sure.  But 
there  never  comes  a  time,  whenever  that  change 


132        THE  FIFTH  COMMANDMENT 

does  occur,  when  the  fifth  commandment  ceases  to 
be  the  law  of  relation  between  parents  and  children. 
But  all  this  while  we  have  been  leaving  unsaid 
the  hardest  word  which  must  still  be  said.  We 
have  been  implying  that  parents  are  always 
worthy  of  the  honour  of  their  children.  What 
shall  be  done  about  dishonourable  parents, 
parents  who  live  and  act  in  ways  which  any 
honest  child  may  know  are  poorer  than  his  own  t 
I  do  not  mean  ignorant  parents.  The  man  is  not 
worthy  of  recognition  who  is  ashamed  of  his 
father  because  of  his  ignorance  or  hard  hands.  I 
am  thinking  instead  of  parents  whose  lives  are 
ignoble.  What  shall  a  fine-grained  son  think 
of  a  father  who  has  become  a  sot,  or  a  libertine, 
or  a  thief?  What  shall  be  the  attitude  of  a  son 
towards  parents  who  have  disgraced  the  name ! 
The  papers  tell  us  of  a  mother  who  sought  in  one 
of  our  cities  to  lead  her  daughter  into  a  life  of 
shame;  what  shall  that  daughter  think  of  the 
mother  ?  Does  this  commandment  apply  there  t 
We  who  have  never  had  such  experience  must 
always  speak  very  softly  when  we  speak .  about 
this.  Let  the  word  be  Yes — it  does  apply  there. 
It  is  still  true  that  the  evil  father  is  a  father,  and 
the  evil  mother  is  a  mother.  There  is  less  said 
about  Jonathan,  the  friend  of  David,  than  there 
might  well  be.     He  shows  to  best  advantage  as 


PRESENT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE       133 

the  son  of  Saul.  Knowing  through  all  of  his 
manhood  life  that  his  father  was  cherishing  an 
unworthy  hatred,  and  was  acting  falsely  and 
shamefully,  and  compelled  at  times  to  take  an 
honest  man's  position  against  his  father,  you  will 
remember  that  from  first  to  last  he  held  him  in 
the  esteem  which  a  father  as  such  may  claim  from 
a  son.  He  never  honoured  his  vices.  He  never 
regarded  his  sins  as  virtues.  He  never  cloaked 
them,  and  yet  he  never  paraded  them.  There 
were  times  when  he  left  a  group  of  men  rather 
than  manifest  the  feeling  he  had.  Let  Saul  be 
or  do  what  he  would,  he  was  still  his  father  and 
as  such  he  honoured  him.  That  possibility  still 
remains  for  any  man.  His  father  may  have 
damaged  him  sorely.  He  may  have  brought  a 
curse  upon  his  life.  God  forgive  the  men  who 
have  done  so  !  He  may  even  at  this  hour  be 
blocking  the  road  of  that  boy  to  his  best  man- 
hood. He  may  have  brought  shame  and  dis- 
grace upon  his  name  until  the  boy  hides  his 
head.  That  mother  may  have  lived  so  cheap 
and  poor  a  life  that  her  daughter  who  has  caught 
some  ideals  of  living  is  ashamed  of  her,  dislikes 
to  have  her  near  her.  She  may  even  feel  that 
the  mother  has  handicapped  her  by  being  the 
woman  she  is.  And  yet  it  still  continues  true 
that   the    fatherhood   and   the   motherhood   to 


134        THE  FIFTH  COMMANDMENT 

which  the  boy  or  the  girl  owes  existence  is  in 
them,  and  the  whole  opportunity  of  living, 
which  is  greater  than  its  disadvantage  in  any 
case,  has  come  through  them,  and  for  that  reason 
they  are  still  worthy  the  honour  which  would  be 
impossible  to  them  as  individuals  and  for  their 
personal  lives. 

But  many  of  us  are  parents,  and  it  is  to  be  said 
in  all  earnestness  that  if  we  expect  our  children  to 
honour  us  we  may  fairly  be  required  to  be  hon- 
ourable. It  is  fair  to  demand  of  us  high  ideals 
for  ourselves  and  our  children.  Pettiness  is  the 
final  sin  of  parenthood.  The  holding  of  an  ideal 
before  our  children,  urging  them  to  attain  it, 
while  they  know  perfectly  well  we  are  not  turn- 
ing our  hands  over  to  attain  it,  or  are  deliber- 
ately yielding  to  inducements  against  it,  is  to 
put  ourselves  to  shame,  and  to  qualify  the  hon- 
our which  they  can  give  to  us. 

It  is  fair  that  we  be  required  to  care  most  for 
the  most  important  things.  That  our  children 
shall  look  back  after  a  while,  honouring  us  so  far 
as  they  may,  but  feeling  that  they  have  lost  a 
great  deal  out  of  their  lives,  not  of  pleasure  but 
of  power,  because  we  entirely  miscalculated  life 
to  them,  is  to  lay  up  for  ourselves  pain.  When 
a  mother  is  zealous  that  her  daughter  shall  dance 
well,  shall  take  all  the  touches  of  social  and  even 


PBESEOT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE       135 

of  educational  life  upon  her,  but  has  no  zeal  for 
her  spiritual  power,  lets  her  run  wild  so  far  as 
that  is  concerned,  takes  no  hand  herself  in  shap- 
ing her  life,  the  daughter  may  have  something  to 
thank  her  for  after  it  is  over,  but  she  will  go 
through  her  real  womanly  life,  if  she  ever  has  it, 
without  the  mother  whom  at  that  point  she  can- 
not honour.  At  that  point,  I  say,  for  if  we  care 
most  for  the  lesser  things,  we  have  disturbed  the 
balance  of  life  for  our  children,  and  as  they  come 
into  knowledge  of  their  real  manhood  and  wom- 
anhood, as  please  God  they  may,  they  will  find 
that  we  led  them  wrong. 

It  is  fair  to  require  that  we  be  worthy  of  the 
honour  in  that  we  teach  our  children  the  large 
lessons  of  life.  It  is  in  the  home  that  a  child 
learns  obedience  if  he  ever  learns  it.  The  school 
might  teach  it  to  him.  The  street  certainly  will 
not  teach  him  any  true  lesson  of  obedience.  It 
will  teach  him  corporate  life,  a  certain  measure 
of  social  life,  but  he  will  never  learn  the  lesson 
of  an  honest  and  manly  obedience  to  law  on  the 
street,  and  the  school  has  little  chance  to  teach 
him.  He  must  learn  to  be  controlled  and  out  of 
that  pass  into  self-control  in  time.  I  confess  that 
my  mind  goes  in  part  at  least  to  that  time-worn 
discussion  of  the  various  forms  of  punishment. 
I  am  not  thinking  of  corporal  punishment  in  the 


136        THE  FIFTH  COMMANDMENT 

sense  in  which  we  ordinarily  speak  of  it.  I 
mean  the  various  forms  of  discipline  which  take 
account  of  offences  and  bring  penalty  because  of 
them.  Some  of  us  have  mothers  like  that  one 
who  raised  seven  sons,  all  of  whom  were  an  hon- 
our to  her,  and  when  asked  for  her  method  said 
it  had  all  been  done  by  prayer  and  hickory. 
Either  without  the  other  would  avail  only  a  little 
in  the  training  of  some  of  us  at  least.  When, 
however,  one  is  declaiming  against  punishment 
in  the  family,  saying  that  for  his  part  he  believes 
in  governing  by  love,  it  should  be  sharply  re- 
sented. It  suggests  an  utterly  unfair  antithesis. 
It  suggests  that  government  by  love  is  incompat- 
ible with  a  government  in  which  punishment 
has  place.  The  man  who  believes  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  love  has  in  it  no  swift  and  sure  pen- 
alty for  misconduct  and  violation  of  the  law  has 
God's  universe  to  reckon  with.  Punishment 
without  love  is  always  a  disgrace.  Punishment 
in  anger  is  always  injurious.  If  a  father  has  so 
lost  control  of  himself  that  he  punishes  a  child  in 
his  wrath  then  he  is  a  disgrace  to  fatherhood. 
But  love  that  is  afraid  to  punish  is  always  feeble. 
To  pretend  that  a  father  may  not  out  of  very  love 
for  his  child  punish  that  child  physically  or  in 
any  other  way  which  seems  to  him  the  wise  way 
is  to  pretend  simple  nonsense.     Govern  by  love 


PRESENT  DAY  FAMILY  LIFE       137 

of  course,  that  is  the  one  bond  of  any  family ; 
but  how  that  love  shall  express  itself  is  not  set- 
tled by  talking  sweet  folly.  It  will  express  itself 
many  a  time  by  punishment,  and  thereby  the 
child  will  learn  that  he  cannot  trifle  with  law, 
thereby  he  learns  obedience,  and  he  goes  out  into 
the  world  with  a  lesson  for  which  he  thanks  his 
parents,  if  he  ever  grows  to  wisdom — that  back 
of  law  lies  love,  but  that  love  has  law  for  its  uses. 
Some  men  never  learn  wisdom  and  you  occasion- 
ally meet  foolish  young  men  who  lay  all  the 
blame  for  their  foolishness  on  their  parents. 
Perhaps  that  cannot  be  avoided,  unworthy  as  it 
is.  At  any  rate,  we  shall  not  win  the  honour  of 
our  children  until  we  teach  them  the  great  les- 
sons of  life,  the  lessons  of  fellowship,  of  sym- 
pathy, obedience,  self-control,  showing  all  these 
lessons  in  ourselves. 

The  practical  duty  is  all  gathered  up  for  us  in 
that  double  facing  of  the  divine  life.  On  the 
one  hand,  Jesus  was  obedient  to  His  parents. 
Though  He  outgrew  their  authority,  He  never 
outgrew  their  honour.  The  last  thing  He  did  on 
the  cross  was  to  make  adequate  and  wise  provi- 
sion for  His  mother.  On  the  other  hand  there  is 
the  Father  of  us  all,  who  looks  over  His  great 
family,  teaches  us  our  lessons,  holds  before  us  the 
great  ideals,  cares  most  for  most  important 
things,  and  after  a  while  gathers  us  all  together 
in  His  home. 


vn 

PRESENT  DAY  REGARD  FOR  LIFE 
(The  Sixth  Commandment) 

Thou  shalt  not  kill.— Exodus  20 :  13. 

You  can  almost  measure  civilization  by  the  re- 
gard which  it  displays  for  human  life.  It  is  a 
suggestive  touch  in  the  Scripture  story  that  one 
of  the  earliest  effects  of  the  ruin  of  human  nature 
in  the  fall  was  the  lessening  of  regard  for  the 
sacredness  of  life.  The  first  son  of  the  fallen 
pair  was  a  murderer  ;  the  second  son  was  his  vic- 
tim. There  could  be  no  better  way  to  teach  us 
that  regard  for  human  life  is  endangered  when 
regard  for  God  is  lost. 

Not  that  this  disregard  appears  in  laws.  They 
are  often  entirely  commendable.  It  is  in  practice 
that  the  lowering  of  the  tone  of  life  appears. 
The  Eoman  law  sought  to  throw  many  safeguards 
around  human  life,  always  meaning  free  human 
life.  Slave  life  did  not  count  in  the  reckoning. 
Seneca  put  the  whole  law  in  one  fine  phrase : 
Man's  a  sacred  thing  to  man.  But  you  remem- 
ber that  gladiators  fought  in  presence  of  the 
finest  of  Eomans,  fought  to  their  death,  and  the 
138 


PRESENT  DAY  REGARD  FOR  LIFE  13» 

delicate  ladies  of  Rome  turned  their  thumbs 
down  as  readily  as  up.  These  same  Roman 
ladies  welcomed  the  plague  which  swept  away 
thousands  of  the  poor  people  of  the  city,  because 
it  left  the  more  room  for  their  carriages  and  trains 
to  pass  through  the  streets.  Whatever  Roman 
law  was,  life  was  not  sacred  in  Rome. 

We  are  hearing  more  about  the  wonderful  civ- 
ilization which  Egypt  must  have  had,  the  monu- 
ments and  sculpture  being  witness.  A  gentle- 
man once  instanced  in  my  hearing  the  great  pyr- 
amid as  evidence  that  modern  civilization  is  not 
in  advance  of  ancient.  But  the  great  pyramid 
cost  thousands  of  lives,  the  product  of  unpaid 
slave  labour.  There  has  come  across  all  these 
years  the  story  of  the  reply  of  an  Egyptian  king 
during  a  similar  enterprise  when  the  rollers  on 
which  a  great  stone  was  being  moved  seemed  to 
need  a  lubricant  He  ordered  a  wretched  slave 
thrown  under  them,  that  his  blood  might  be 
lubricant  for  them.  One  of  the  careful  students 
of  ancient  civilization  assures  us  that  we  are  now 
dealing  with  one  of  the  deepest  defects  of  its  his- 
tory.    It  had  no  regard  for  human  life. 

We  are  not  too  far  from  a  similar  defect.  Men 
of  great  ambition  have  even  of  late  been  willing 
to  see  their  ends  gained  at  cost  of  life.    You  may 


140        THE  SIXTH  COMMANDMENT 

recall  the  famous  interview  between  Napoleon 
and  Metternich.  The  emperor  had  demanded  a 
report  of  a  certain  campaign.  "  Sir,"  said  Met- 
ternich, "  you  ought  not  to  undertake  it.  It  will 
cost  you  one  hundred  thousand  men."  "One 
hundred  thousand  men,"  said  Napoleon,  "what 
are  one  hundred  thousand  men  to  me!"  And 
Metternich  went  to  the  window  and  opened  it 
wide  and  exclaimed  with  indignation,  "Let  all 
Europe  hear  that  infamous  declaration."  Even 
that  is  farther  back  than  we  need  to  go.  The 
anti- Jewish  atrocities  in  Eussia  keep  us  reminded 
that  human  life  is  not  precious  in  our  own  day. 
Women  and  children,  who  at  least  were  innocent 
of  any  offence  which  might  have  provoked  pop- 
ular wrath,  have  been  mercilessly  seized  and 
upon  them  have  been  committed  horrible  indig- 
nities, beside  which  death  must  have  been  sweet. 
There  are  some  who  would  have  our  govern- 
ment interpose  with  strong  protest.  Let  us  not 
forget  the  word  of  our  Master  which  bids  us  cast 
the  beam  out  of  our  own  eye.  One  of  the  worst 
effects  of  sin  is  its  shutting  our  lips  when  another 
man  sins.  Our  own  skirts  are  not  clear.  We 
have  offended.  It  is  not  very  long  since  the  Ital- 
ian government  found  us  helpless  in  presence  of 
an  American  mob  in  New  Orleans.    The  Austrian 


PRESENT  DAY  REGABD  FOR  LIFE  141 

government  once  filed  formal  protest  against  our 
treatment  of  sojourners  from  its  own  land  here. 
Even  the  Chinese  government  has  protested  with- 
out avail  against  the  slaughter  of  its  citizens  in 
one  of  our  states.  Protest  against  the  deed  of  a 
mob  in  Russia !  Who  shall  protest  against  the 
deeds  of  a  mob  in  our  own  land  which  takes  a 
man  against  whom  nothing  is  proved,  and  burns 
him  at  the  stake  f 

For  we  are  grievous  offenders  against  the  law 
in  our  own  land.  That  terrible  trinity  of  offences, 
lynching,  suicide,  murder,  hold  carnival  with  us. 
Only  slowly  does  the  sturdy  and  sound  moral 
sense  of  the  people  win  its  way  over  them.  The 
year  1905  was  the  best  we  have  had  in  twenty 
years  in  its  record  of  lynchings.  Sixty  six  per- 
sons met  their  deaths  at  the  hands  of  mobs,  many 
of  them  for  offences  which  are  not  subject  to  the 
legal  death  penalty  in  any  case.  Two  were  killed 
for  larceny  or  attempt  at  larceny.  One  met  his 
death  for  an  attempt  to  assault  a  white  man. 
One  was  hanged  under  the  charge  of  being  an  in- 
former. The  only  charge  in  another  case  was 
race  prejudice.  In  other  cases  it  is  now  perfectly 
plain  that  it  was  mistaken  identity.  Down  at 
the  heart  of  the  whole  trouble  lies  a  light  regard 
for  human  life.     Men  are  not  lynched  in  solemn 


142        THE  SIXTH  COMMANDMENT 

protest  against  sin,  but  in  feverish  hate,  under 
sharp  excitement,  when  their  executioners  are 
least  capable  of  determining  what  should  be  done. 
A  few  years  ago,  about  fifteen  miles  from  my 
own  home,  a  negro  was  burned  alive.  There 
were  many  who  were  sadly  sorry,  but  thought  it 
very  necessary  to  teach  the  negroes  a  lesson. 
Within  ten  days  the  same  offence  with  which  he 
was  charged  was  committed  in  the  same  town,  and 
the  very  next  day  after  his  death  there  appeared 
grave  reason  to  think  he  was  not  the  guilty  party 
at  all.  In  the  last  twenty  years,  3,000  persons 
have  been  so  killed  in  this  country. 

In  the  year  1905,  9,980  persons  committed  sui- 
cide in  this  land.  And  that  was  a  marked  in- 
crease over  preceding  years.  In  1899,  there  were 
5,300;  in  1900,  6,700;  in  1901,  7,200;  in  1902, 
8,200;  1903,  8,600;  1904,  9,200.  A  great  many 
people  are  sure  that  such  offences  are  committed 
only  in  times  of  insanity,  but  they  violate  the 
law  of  God,  and  they  would  not  be  committed  if 
we  held  life  in  such  regard  as  we  ought. 

Murders  have  increased  also.  There  were  re- 
corded 9,212  in  1905,  against  8,482  the  year  be- 
fore. You  will  realize  something  of  the  meaning 
of  all  this  as  it  bears  on  the  sixth  commandment 
when  you  recall  that  in  the  year  of  this  writing 


PEESENT  DAY  EEGAED  FOE  LIFE  143 

more  than  19,000  persons  are  known  to  have  met 
violent  death  in  this  country  either  at  their  own 
hands  or  at  the  hands  of  their  fellow  men.  Of 
those  which  are  thus  recorded,  about  100  are 
known  to  have  been  innocent,  or  unavoidable,  is- 
suing from  no  malice.  But  nearly  150  were  in- 
fanticides, wherein  little  children  were  ruthlessly 
murdered.  And  these  are  only  the  crimes  which 
are  known.  Only  God  knows  how  many  men 
were  brought  to  their  death  by  the  wrath  of  their 
fellows,  who  covered  up  their  offence.  Only  God 
knows  how  many  children,  unwelcomed  at  their 
coming,  were  destroyed  by  those  who  should  have 
greeted  them  and  rejoiced  in  their  coming. 

The  true  idea  of  murder  involves  malice  and 
disregard  of  the  rights  of  others.  In  the  very 
chapter  after  this  law  was  given,  solemn  capital 
punishment  was  commanded.  There  come  times 
when  a  man  surrenders  his  right  to  life,  and  when 
the  proper  authorities  in  the  proper  way  may 
take  it  from  him.  The  wickedness  of  murder 
does  not  consist  in  the  wrong  done  to  the  mur- 
dered man,  but  in  the  attack  that  is  made  on  the 
prerogative  of  God.  Man  is  made  in  His  image, 
and  whoever  strikes  a  blow  at  that  image,  offends 
Him  whose  is  the  image.  And  it  is  He  whose 
earliest  law  in  this  matter  is,  "  Whoso  sheddeth 


144        THE  SIXTH  COMMANDMENT 

man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed." 
That  is  not  ceremonial  law,  it  is  not  Mosaic  law, 
and  it  has  not  been  abrogated.  The  reason  for  it 
still  exists.  No  man  ever  forfeits  his  right  to 
justice,  but  he  has  the  same  right  to  suffer  it  as  to 
receive  it. 

As  the  command  does  not  forbid  capital  pun- 
ishment, so  it  does  not  forbid  war,  righteous  war, 
and  there  is  such  war.  Many  of  the  wars  of  the 
past  have  been  iniquitous,  but  many  of  them  have 
been  the  very  work  of  God,  bringing  justice  to 
the  oppressed  and  accomplishing  great  purposes 
for  the  race  of  men.  They  need  involve  no  mal- 
ice, and  when  they  do,  they  become  murder. 
Their  grave  peril,  even  when  they  may  be  right- 
eous in  their  purpose,  we  need  not  be  told  when 
we  learn  of  the  wrongs  which  have  accompanied 
every  such  strife.  I  do  not  forget  that  there  is 
much  argument  about  both  these  matters,  which 
are  not  offences  against  the  commandment,  as  I 
read  the  word  of  God  and  history.  I  have  no  zeal 
to  make  argument  now.  There  are  more  mo- 
mentous matters,  which  touch  our  own  lives, 
about  which  we  must  think. 

Of  these  matters,  this  is  the  first — There  are 
many  indirect  ways  of  disregarding  the  value  of 
human  life.     It  is  amazing  to  note  how  difficult  it 


PEESENT  DAY  EEGAED  FOE  LIFE  145 

is  to  secure  the  passage  of  laws  which  make  for 
the  protection  of  life,  especially  child  life.  In 
1802,  the  first  bill  was  introduced  into  the  British 
Parliament  forbidding  the  all  night  labour  of 
children  under  nine  years  of  age  in  the  textile 
factories  of  England.  The  owners  and  stockhold- 
ers of  that  industry  made  a  hard  fight  against  it, 
insisting  that  they  would  be  compelled  to  leave 
England,  if  they  were  not  allowed  to  employ  these 
children.  It  was  frankly  admitted  that  such  work 
stunted  their  bodies  and  prevented  their  mental 
development,  that  it  took  from  them  their  chance 
to  study  and  to  be  fitted  for  the  duties  of  man- 
hood, but  it  was  still  insisted  that  only  so  could 
the  industry  be  made  to  prosper.  Finally  the  law 
passed  and  it  became  impossible  for  any  nine  year 
old  child  to  work  all  night  in  a  factory.  Parents 
were  much  incensed  because  they  wanted  the 
money  which  the  babies  could  earn.  That  seems 
very  remote  to  us.  It  was  one  hundred  years 
ago.  But  I  have  followed  few  harder  fights  in  a 
state  legislature  than  the  one  that  had  to  be  made 
to  secure  a  law  preventing  the  all  day  or  all  night 
employment  of  boys  and  girls  under  fourteen 
years  of  age.  Certain  factories  in  the  state  con- 
cerned assured  the  committee  that  they  would 
certainly  leave  the  state  if  they  were  not  allowed 


146        THE  SIXTH  COMMANDMENT 

to  employ  these  children.  They  were  asked  if  it 
did  not  affect  their  bodies  and  minds  adversely, 
and  replied  that  they  supposed  it  might,  but  if 
their  parents  did  not  look  after  that,  and  if  they 
were  willing  to  do  the  work,  they  could  not  see 
what  business  it  was  of  the  legislature  and  a  few 
troublesome  reformers ;  beside  which,  the  business 
could  not  be  made  to  pay  unless  cheap  labour  like 
this  could  be  employed.  While  the  bill  was  un- 
der discussion,  I  chanced  to  sit  at  a  table  at  a 
public  eating  house,  next  to  one  where  men  sat 
speaking  of  the  bill.  One  denounced  it  bitterly. 
He  said  he  had  occasion  to  employ  a  good  many 
children  at  different  times  in  the  year,  and  he 
could  not  see  why  he  should  not  employ  girls  of 
ten  and  eleven,  since  he  always  had  to  pay  the 
older  ones  a  great  deal  more  money.  One  of  his 
friends  asked  him  how  these  little  ones  stood  it. 
"Oh,"  he  replied,  "of  course  it  does  not  take 
long  to  wear  them  out,  but  you  never  have  any 
trouble  finding  more. ' '  The  bill,  with  its  stringent 
inspection  features,  and  its  rigid  age  limit,  finally 
passed,  with  only  three  votes  against  it.  But  one 
who  was  on  the  bench  of  the  legislature  just  be- 
hind the  speaker  and  saw  it  all,  told  me  after- 
wards that  it  was  pitiful  to  see  how  many  men 
had  important  calls  out  of  the  hall  just  before  the 


PEESENT  DAY  EEGAED  FOE  LIFE  147 

roll  call,  or  as  their  names  were  approached,  and 
so  escaped  voting.  Popular  opinion  would  not 
allow  them  to  vote  against  the  bill,  but  they  were 
not  brave  enough  to  vote  for  it,  and  manifest  a 
higher  regard  for  child  life  than  for  business. 

A  similar  disregard  for  life  appears  in  the 
effort  necessary  to  secure  the  passage  of  laws 
regulating  the  amount  of  space  that  may  be 
covered  by  a  building.  It  was  found  in  one  of 
our  cities,  for  example,  that  the  average  tene- 
ment building  covered  ninety  per  cent,  of  the 
lot  on  which  it  stood.  Such  a  condition  utterly 
forbids  reasonable  light  and  air  for  the  tenants. 
There  must  be  many  inside  and  dark  rooms  in 
any  such  building,  and  that  means  death  or  sick- 
ness. An  ordinance  was  introduced  requiring 
a  much  larger  percentage  of  the  lot  to  be  left 
unoccupied.  There  was  immediate  opposition. 
You  can  guess  on  what  ground.  The  City  Homes 
Association  asked,  "Is  not  this  added  space 
needed  for  pure  air  and  abundant  light!  "  The 
opponents  admitted  that  it  is,  but  insisted  that 
with  values  as  they  are  in  the  city  you  cannot 
make  a  building  pay  unless  you  put  so  many 
rooms  in  an  apartment,  and  so  many  apartments 
on  the  lot.  They  said  people  would  rather  have 
more  rooms  and  less  light  and  air.     They  were 


148        THE  SIXTH  COMMANDMENT 

asked  whether  there  was  not  greatest  mortality 
where  buildings  were  crowded,  and  insufficiently 
lighted  and  aired.  They  said  it  doubtless  was 
so,  but  that  did  not  alter  the  fact  that  you  could 
not  make  the  building  pay  unless  you  used  more 
of  the  space  than  the  ordinance  permitted.  It 
was  evident  that  the  argument  would  defeat  the 
ordinance,  and  its  friends  receded  from  their  posi- 
tion and  accepted  a  compromise.  A  Brooklyn 
tenement  proprietor  said  a  little  while  ago  that 
the  whole  thing  resolves  itself  into  this,  whether 
a  tenement  house  keeper  is  willing  to  take  seven 
per  cent,  and  save  his  soul,  or  demand  twenty- 
five  per  cent,  and  lose  his  soul. 

Jacob  A.  Eiis's  story  of  Mulberry  Bend  before 
and  after  deserves  to  become  a  staple  argument 
In  1897  there  was  in  it  a  murder  a  week,  and 
there  were  so  many  deaths  that  its  rate  was  170 
to  the  thousand,  while  the  death  rate  of  New 
York  was  between  nineteen  and  twenty  to  the 
thousand.  Determined  men  took  hold  of  the 
Bend,  tore  out  its  crowded  tenements,  saw  to  the 
building  of  better  ones,  with  more  light  and  air, 
let  in  the  air  and  the  sun  by  a  small  park  where 
children  may  play,  transformed  old  Mulberry 
Bend,  and  for  six  years  there  has  been  no  mur- 
der, and  no  suicide,  and  the  death  rate  has  gone 


PRESENT  DAY  REGARD  FOR  LIFE  149 

to  the  normal  rate  of  the  city.  Nor  has  there 
been  a  consequent  increase  of  crime  elsewhere.  It 
has  been  a  sheer  destruction  of  crime  by  the  light 
and  air  cure.  And  yet  it  was  a  long  and  hard 
fight  to  get  these  horrible  holes  of  vice  destroyed. 
The  reformers  were  fought  at  every  step  as  vision- 
aries, and  impracticables,  by  the  owners  of  the 
wretched  dens  where  people  existed,  and  by 
politicians  who  did  not  want  their  clientele  dis- 
turbed. Mr.  Riis  one  day  took  a  woman  of 
Christian  spirit  with  him  to  see  one  of  the  places 
which  his  soul  loathed.  She  made  the  tour  and 
came  out  sick  of  heart.  He  said,  "Madam,  it 
will  be  easy  for  you  to  correct  all  that."  "For 
met"  she  exclaimed,  "how  can  I  do  anything 
about  itt"  "Madam,  the  building  belongs  to 
you,  and  you  get  all  the  rentals."  And  spite  of 
her  horror  at  the  evil  it  took  her  some  time  to 
overcome  first  her  own  fear  of  the  loss  of  the 
revenue  and  then  the  opposition  of  her  family 
and  her  lawyers,  and  order  the  place  torn  down 
and  replaced  with  a  decent  house.  When  it 
touches  pockets,  men  find  they  do  not  care  so 
much  for  human  life  as  they  do  for  their  reve- 
nues. But  let  every  property-owner  know  of  a 
surety  that  in  all  moral  decency  he  must  share 
the  shame  and  responsibility  for  sin  if  he  shares 


150        THE  SIXTH  COMMANDMENT 

the  profit  of  it.  Let  every  man  who  professes 
the  name  of  Christ  keep  himself  clear  of  the 
business  of  ruining  men. 

The  commandment  comes  into  still  closer  rela- 
tion to  our  lives  when  we  hear  Jesus'  reading  of 
it.  He  puts  it  where  the  meaning  ought  to  be, 
in  the  inner  life.  Not  many  men  lay  violent 
hands  on  their  fellows.  Does  it  seem  a  great 
many  murders,  9,200  in  one  year?  Yes,  but  do 
not  forget  that  more  than  seventy  million  people 
were  concerned.  How  few  there  were  after  all ! 
There  is  a  high  and  strong  regard  for  human  life, 
thank  God.  But  where  does  murder  start ?  Not 
in  the  knife  nor  in  the  poison.  It  starts  in  the 
heart  of  hatred.  And  Jesus  says  it  with  start, 
ling  clearness : — "  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been 
said  by  them  of  old  time,  Thou  shalt  not  kill, 
and  whosoever  shall  kill  shall  be  in  danger  of 
the  judgment.  But  I  say  unto  you,  that  every 
one  of  you  who  is  angry  with  his  brother  shall 
be  in  danger  of  the  judgment. "  It  is  there  that 
murder  begins  j  it  is  there  that  the  wickedness  of 
it  appears.  And  there  we  fall  into  much  con- 
demnation. You  say  you  hate  some  man  j  he 
has  done  you  or  yours  a  great  injury ;  he  has 
wronged  you  bitterly,  and  you  hate  him.  Then 
how  will  you  reckon  with  Jesus'  word?  You 
would  not  lift  your  hand  to  injure  him?   You 


PRESENT  DAY  REGARD  FOR  LIFE  151 

would  never  think  of  taking  his  life?  No,  but 
you  have  the  seed  which  in  another  man  grows 
and  bears  that  fatal  fruit.  And  if  it  does  not  so 
grow  in  your  own  heart,  it  is  of  the  grace  of  God 
and  not  of  your  goodness.  You  say  he  is  unre- 
pentant, that  he  is  brazen  in  his  sin.  Then  God 
pity  him,  for  while  he  is  so  he  cannot  be  for- 
given. But  as  for  you,  you  do  not  aid  his 
punishment  by  the  sin  of  hatred.  You  can  for- 
give him,  while  still  he  cannot  receive  the  for- 
giveness. As  the  mountain  can  send  down  its 
streams  of  sweet  and  refreshing  water,  though 
the  plain  may  refuse  to  receive  it.  Let  the  moun- 
tain do  its  share,  if  it  do  not  accomplish  its  pur- 
pose ;  it  cannot  control  the  plain.  Let  your  heart 
do  its  share ;  let  it  forgive,  let  it  bury  its  hate, 
let  it  cast  out  its  murderous  seed,  even  if  it  may 
not  correct  the  wrong  in  the  life  of  the  offender. 
Do  you  not  remember  which  disciple  it  was  who 
knew  Jesus  best,  who  lay  on  His  breast  at  supper, 
and  caught  most  clearly  the  light  of  His  lovet 
It  was  that  apostle,  who,  at  the  end  of  a  long  life 
of  service,  as  he  neared  the  close,  wrote  these 
ominous  words,  "Whosoever  hateth  his  brother 
is  a  murderer."  You  stand  by  the  scaffold  and 
see  the  poor  wretch  led  to  his  death.  You  pity 
him,  you  condemn  him.  And  you  walk  away 
from  the  scaffold,  after  his  soul  is  ushered  into 


152        THE  SIXTH  COMMANDMENT 

the  presence  of  the  Judge,  hating  some  man  in 
your  heart.  How  do  you  differ  from  him  ?  He 
hated  and  that  hatred  had  no  restraining  hand 
laid  on  it,  no  long  line  of  man-regarding  ancestry 
lay  back  of  him,  no  long-taught  self-control 
throttled  that  hate,  or  shut  it  in.  So  it  leaped 
out  and  dealt  the  death-blow.  The  same  hatred 
in  your  heart  is  held  back,  like  a  wild  beast  that 
cannot  burst  the  chains  that  bind  it.  But  it  is 
the  same  wild  beast,  with  the  tiger  blood  in  its 
veins,  only  that  the  good  providence  of  God  has 
given  you  chains  to  bind  it.  You  walk  about 
free  in  the  sight  of  men.  Does  not  God  see  two 
scaffolds  that  day,  where  two  wild  beasts  are  put 
to  death  ?  One  came  crashing  out  and  devoured 
its  foe ;  the  other  had  all  the  venom  of  the  first, 
but  did  not  break  its  chains. 

What  can  you  do!  Better  chain  the  tiger,  a 
million  times  better  chain  the  tiger  in  your  own 
heart,  and  not  let  him  out.  Murder  in  the  heart 
wrongs  only  yourself.  But  a  million  times  better 
than  chaining  is  the  killing  of  that  tiger  in  your 
heart.  Choke  back  your  hatred  f  Yes,  let  it  not 
flame  out  against  your  enemy.  But  choke  that 
hatred  until  it  dies.  You  say  you  cannot? 
Think  that  over  before  you  say  it.  You  cannot 
be  forgiven  until  you  will  forgive,  and  you  can- 
not forgive.    Then  God  who  made  you  and  who 


PBESENT  DAY  EEGAED  FOE  LIFE  153 

made  the  condition  of  your  forgiveness  must  bear 
the  eternal  blame  for  your  banishment  from  Him. 
My  brother,  it  is  not  so.  You  and  I  and  all  men 
can  forgive,  and  must  forgive.  Is  it  hard? 
Yes,  but  hatred  is  harder,  and  brings  more 
misery  in  its  train.  Is  anything  more  bitter  than 
the  feeling  of  revenge,  of  getting  even !  What 
disappointments  it  brings  ;  how  little  satisfaction 
it  ever  brings;  what  bad  taste  it  leaves  in  the 
mouth  after  the  sweetest  fruit  of  revenge  is  eaten  ! 
And  on  the  other  hand,  we  gain  nobility  by  for- 
giveness, by  replacing  hatred  with  love.  We 
have  not  got  far  in  our  love  of  our  neighbour  as 
ourselves,  but  every  section  of  that  road  has  been 
one  of  increasing  happiness.  The  ultimate  joy 
of  the  world  lies  in  the  true  spirit  of  forgiveness, 
not  in  successful  hatred.  If  therefore,  in  your 
heart  this  day  you  find  malice  towards  any 
enemy,  no  matter  how  he  has  wronged  you,  if 
there  you  find  an  unforgiving  spirit  you  are  on 
the  way  to  unhappiness,  not  to  peace.  For  in  that 
spirit  the  law  of  God  is  violated,  and  therein  is 
deepest  unhappiness. 

The  commandment  comes  to  these  two  practical 
duties.  It  demands  first  that  we  keep  our  esti- 
mate of  human  life  thoroughly  Christian.  We 
and  our  fellows  are  made  in  the  image  of  God, 
and  that  image  is  imperilled  or  disregarded  at 


154        THE  SIXTH  COMMANDMENT 

our  peril.  We  violate  the  law  when  we  condone 
the  taking  away  of  the  life  of  men.  We  violate 
it  when  we  argue  about  the  necessity  for  exploit- 
ing the  few  for  the  sake  of  the  many,  or  the  sac- 
rifice of  the  life  of  one  class  for  the  sake  of  an- 
other. What  Jesus  thinks  of  human  life  we  may 
guess  from  what  He  did  to  redeem  it.  We  are 
required  to  keep  our  estimate  of  life  worthy  of 
that  profession. 

And  that  is  the  second  duty — to  catch  the 
spirit  of  love  for  men  which  Christ  displays.  No 
law  can  control  the  matter.  Law  may  control 
my  hand,  and  prevent  my  dipping  it  in  your 
blood,  but  no  civil  law  can  drive  hate  out  of  my 
heart.  No  determination  of  my  own  can  do  it. 
Nothing  can  do  it  but  the  putting  in  its  place  of 
something  stronger  and  better.  That  something 
is  the  love  which  thinketh  no  ill,  the  love  of 
that  whole  thirteenth  of  First  Corinthians.  It 
comes  into  our  lives  from  connection  with  Jesus 
Christ,  and  when  it  comes  it  is  like  the  sunlight 
that  comes  into  your  darkened  room  and  drives 
out  the  darkness  with  no  noise  and  no  clamour, 
but  gently  and  surely.  Every  man  who  learns 
in  the  school  of  Christ  to  love  his  neighbour  as 
Christ  loves  himself,  keeps  the  commandment 
and  is  blest. 


vm 

PRESENT  DAY  PURITY 
(The  Seventh  Commandment) 

Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery. — ExoDTJS  20 :  15. 

Oub  studies  have  brought  us  to  this  seventh 
commandment,  with  its  prohibition  of  impurity. 
The  Hebrew  word  used  covers  all  forms  of  moral 
uncleanness.  It  calls  for  a  pure  life  from  within 
outward.  It  means  little  that  the  outer  life  be 
pure  if  the  inner  heart  be  dripping  with  wicked- 
ness. In  the  coarser  forms  of  the  sin  here  forbid- 
den the  vice  seems  to  flourish  more  among 
so-called  civilized  nations  than  among  the  un- 
civilized. Perhaps  that  is  because  of  the  higher 
standard  of  the  moral  life,  and  perhaps  it  is  be- 
cause of  the  greater  restrictions  which  are  thrown 
around  the  family  and  the  personal  life,  so  that 
violations  are  recognized  and  recorded.  But  the 
prevalence  of  impurity  both  in  the  inner  heart 
of  men  and  in  their  outer  lives  is  beyond  argu- 
ment There  is  room  for  rebellion  against  the 
quiet  assumption  of  a  great  many  that  it  has 
swept  all  men  or  most  men  into  its  current. 
When  one  of  our  prominent  men  was  tried  for  the 
155 


156    THE  SEVENTH  COMMANDMENT 

shame  of  which  he  was  proved  guilty,  his  scoun- 
drelly lawyer,  with  a  leer  at  the  jury,  bade  them 
remember  that  every  man  in  the  land  was  guilty 
of  the  same  offence  but  had  covered  his  sin.  It 
is  little  short  of  monstrous  that  one  of  our  best 
papers,  reviewing  an  edition  of  Montaigne's  es- 
says should  blandly  apologize  for  his  filthiness  in 
personal  life,  declaring  that  he  only  expressed 
without  prudery  the  opinion  most  men  hold  re- 
garding the  relation  between  men  and  women. 
Against  that,  decent  men  may  well  rebel. 

And  yet  one  of  my  brethren  who  is  a  careful 
observer  has  said  in  many  places  that  if  he  could 
cure  the  present  generation  of  only  one  sin  and 
that  the  one  which  he  counted  the  most  damning 
and  most  prevalent,  he  would  not  begin  with 
liquor  nor  with  dishonesty  ;  he  would  begin  with 
social  vice  and  the  evil  heart  out  of  which  it  pro- 
ceeds. I  cannot  gainsay  such  testimony,  while  I 
repudiate  the  suggestion  that  purity  is  rare  and 
impurity  the  prevailing  law  of  life.  There  is 
need  that  one  shall  speak  delicately  and  strongly 
even  of  the  coarse  vice  which  gains  favour  with 
some  if  it  be  not  named.  One  must  plead  for  a 
pure  heart  even  when  there  is  danger  that  the 
very  plea  will  stir  up  impure  depths.  The  word 
much  needs  to  be  said.     Much  ruin  has  been 


PEESENT  DAY  PUEITY  157 

wrought  in  history  because  men  fell  into  the  mire 
of  this  sin.  Some  of  our  great  literature  has 
issued  from  the  protest  of  clean  men  against  un- 
cleanness.  v Homer's  Iliad  is  the  story  of  the  re- 
bellion of  a  people,  not  against  the  mere  carry- 
ing away  of  Helen,  but  against  the  breaking  of 
the  family  bond  which  that  sin  involved/  The 
Odyssey  is  the  story  of  the  strong  stand  taken  by 
a  pure  woman  for  a  clean  life  and  against  all  im- 
purity. From  the  beginning,  the  family  has 
been  the  unit  of  society  and  its  preservation  has 
been  of  first  importance.  But  the  seventh  com- 
mandment preserves  the  family  for  us/  There 
can  be  no  true  family  life  which  does  not  regard 
it  With  that  commandment  the  race  rises  out 
of  animalism,  and  becomes  human. 

But  the  meaning  of  the  commandment  is  not 
exhausted  when  it  protects  the  family  integrity. 
Jesus  read  its  meaning  for  us  in  terms  of  the 
inner  life.  He  found  its  meaning  in  the  heart 
and  the  thoughts.  From  within,  out  of  the  heart 
of  men  proceed  evil  thoughts.  Making  us  pure 
in  heart,  He  trusts  the  purity  of  our  lives.  And 
not  only  because  it  preserves  the  family,  not  only 
because  of  Jesus'  reading  of  the  meaning  of  the 
sin,  but  because  of  the  nature  of  the  sin,  the  word 
is  needed.     All  the  finer  manhood,  all  the  finer 


158    THE  SEVENTH  COMMANDMENT 

womanhood  dies  in  the  sin  of  moral  uncleanness. 
No  sophistry  can  overcome  the  inexorable  law. 
There  is  no  sin  which  grips  the  whole  life  as  it 
does,  and  damns  every  endeavour  after  godliness. 
All  the  specious  arguments  with  which  coarse  and 
weak  men  befool  themselves  about  the  wicked- 
ness of  the  evil  are  houses  of  straw  before  the 
fires  of  the  great  woods,  when  the  facts  of  com- 
mon observation  are  brought  to  bear  on  them. 
Take  your  Tennyson  and  read  again  the  quest  of 
Lancelot  for  the  Holy  Grail.  Eemember  his 
guilty  love  for  Guinevere,  and  hear  him  tell  why 
he  could  not  see  the  Holy  Grail,  though  he  sought 
it  far  and  long.     He  says  he  could  not  see  it,  for 

"  In  me  lived  a  sin, 
So  strange,  of  such  a  kind,  that  all  of  pure, 
Noble  and  knightly  in  me  twined  and  clnng 
Round  that  one  sin." 

This  is  the  Upas  tree  among  the  sins.  You 
know  the  story  of  that  strange  tree  in  Java.  It 
exudes  a  deadly  poison,  and  so  fatal  is  it  that 
the  early  travellers  told  that  birds  could  not  fly 
over  it  without  falling  under  its  spell  to  their 
death.  Its  shade  cast  on  animals  meant  their 
ruin.  It  was  deadly  and  deathly.  The  wise  men 
of  our  own  day  tell  us  the  first  stories  went  be- 
yond the  fact,  that  a  bird  may  fly  over  it  and 


PRESENT  DAY  PURITY  159 

live,  but  it  may  not  alight  in  its  branches  with- 
out bearing  away  with  it  some  of  its  baneful  in- 
fluence. The  early  stories  arose  in  the  fact  that 
it  will  grow  in  valleys  so  low  and  so  unreached 
by  the  sun  thaj;  the  gases  formed  there  are  never 
purified  and  no  animal  life  is  possible.  Unclean- 
ness  is  the  Upas  tree  of  sins.  It  kills  the  best  in 
man ;  even  his  thoughts  with  which  he  would 
mount  up  into  the  heavens  bear  the  curse  with 
them.  It  exudes  a  deadly  poison  for  the  ruin  of 
those  who  are  about.  Every  filthy  man  brings 
filth  to  other  lives  that  but  for  his  would  be  clean. 
It  is  a  sin  of  the  unlighted  valleys  of  the  life  of 
men,  where  gases  are  noxious  and  deadly.  It 
cannot  bear  the  purifying  rays  of  the  Sun  of 
righteousness.  It  binds  the  wings  of  men.  It 
puts  chains  on  their  better  nature. 

The  sinner  never  gets  away  from  his  sin.  He 
is  a  David,  with  one  misstep,  one  gross  animal 
sin,  and  a  lifetime  of  repentance.  He  is  a  Tar- 
quin,  with  one  hour  of  guilty  passion  and  a  life- 
long banishment  from  purity  and  goodness  and 
home.  Let  any  man  who  counts  it  defensible  to 
practice  impurity  declare  if  he  will  publish  his 
conduct  to  the  world,  and  we  shall  know  if  there 
be  aught  but  shame  in  the  sin.  Such  sins  re- 
vealed blast  a  man,  and  banish  him  from  morally 


160    THE  SEVENTH  COMMANDMENT 

decent  society.  In  our  study  of  the  sixth  com- 
mandment, we  noted  the  sad  suicide  of  thousands 
of  men  and  women.  Do  I  need  to  add  that  not 
a  few  of  these  have  gone  to  their  death  because 
they  found  themselves  under  the  grip  and  shame 
of  moral  uncleanness  f  "  One  more  unfortunate, 
weary  of  breath,  rashly  importunate,  gone  to  her 
death  ! n — I  used  to  say  it  as  a  schoolboy,  declaim- 
ing it  as  though  it  were  poetry.  But  many  a  time 
in  my  manhood  the  lines  have  come  to  me  as  I 
have  known  of  a  half- heard  splash  yonder  in  the 
river,  or  a  poison  so  quietly  taken  that  even  near 
friends  do  not  know  of  it.  What  lies  back  of  all 
that  ?  The  same  story  of  shame  and  sin,  the 
same  grip  of  the  sin  of  uncleanness,  which  seems 
so  strong  that  no  power  on  earth  or  in  heaven 
can  break  it.  And  then  men  tell  us  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  have  a  city  without  places  of  social 
iniquity  !  It  will  be  impossible  so  long  as  we 
let  it  be  impossible,  but  so  soon  as  we  care  for 
decency  and  integrity  and  clean  lives,  it  will  not 
be  impossible. 

It  chances  that  I  have  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  movements  for  the  prevention  of  the  hand- 
ling of  vicious  literature.  I  could  not  tell  you, 
if  it  were  wise  that  I  should,  how  prevalent  that 
offence  is.    You  would  not  endure  the  things 


PKESENT  DAT  PUEITY  161 

which  are  true,  of  the  money  invested,  of  the 
tons  of  literature  overtaken  by  the  vigilant  in- 
spectors. It  is  not  simply  that  mature  people 
encourage  the  making  and  selling  of  these  vile 
sheets  and  books,  but  that  they  contaminate 
young  people  and  children  wherever  it  is  possi- 
ble. Thus  they  make  a  market  for  their  nefa- 
rious wares.  In  a  beautiful  city  of  one  of  our 
states,  it  was  found  that  there  were  evil  influ- 
ences at  work,  whose  source  could  not  be  discov- 
ered. At  last  an  official  who  is  skilled  in  such 
matters  was  called  in.  He  found  that  an  evil 
minded  lad  had  brought  to  the  school  one  copy 
of  a  vile  pamphlet.  The  boys  and  at  last  even 
the  girls  had  secured  copies  of  it,  typewritten 
and  hand-copied,  until  every  child  in  the  school, 
five  hundred  of  them,  had  been  befouled  by  it. 
Not  one  of  the  parents  could  be  found  who  knew 
of  it.  It  had  simply  wrought  its  ruin  because 
they  were  not  watchful.  None  of  those  children 
will  ever  escape  the  influence  under  which  they 
were  thus  brought.  The  wickedness  of  which  I 
speak  is  to  be  found  in  every  city,  and  widely 
throughout  the  country.  Let  me  make  strong 
appeal  to  parents  to  see  to  the  matter.  They 
will  find  themselves  powerless  in  presence  of  it. 
It  is  organized  far  beyond  their  reach.     But  they 


162    THE  SEVENTH  COMMANDMENT 

can  help  to  pat  it  out,  and  to  save  their  own  and 
other  children,  by  letting  the  first  signs  of  it  be 
known  wherever  they  are  seen. 

We  are  in  a  period  of  reaction  against  the 
erotic  literature  which  for  a  time  seemed  to  flood 
our  stores.  There  are  vile  books  still  published, 
and  there  are  some  ready  to  defend  them,  to 
speak  about  their  realism,  to  defend  their  being 
so  true  to  life.  So  is  any  filth  true  to  life — true 
to  filthy  life.  Much  of  the  literature  which  is 
defended  as  so  clean  and  strong  because  it  speaks 
out  so  freely,  books  which  I  need  not  name,  much 
of  it  is  the  product  of  a  befouled  mind  or  a  mind 
that  has  lost  its  sense  of  decency.  It  is  encour- 
aging from  time  to  time  that  a  play  has  been 
withdrawn  because  it  passes  the  limit  of  decency. 
The  author  will  make  capital  of  it,  but  when  a 
man  is  proud  of  his  evil  heart,  there  is  no  pre- 
venting his  boasting.  Men  and  women  who  love 
to  pretend  great  liberty  of  thought,  and  so  claim 
the  right  to  sit  down  to  a  prurient  play,  will 
prate  still  more,  and  some  will  read  or  see  the 
plays  who  would  never  have  thought  of  doing  so 
but  for  the  opposition. 

But  of  all  the  arguments  which  are  used  to  de- 
fend such  defilement,  none  is  more  disgusting 
and  more  impudent  than  the  pious  quoting  of 


PEESENT  DAY  PUEITY  163 

the  word,  "to  the  pure  all  things  are  pure." 
Are  we  then  to  think  that  if  a  man  is  pure  every- 
thing he  looks  upon  is  pure  for  him  ?  Then  if  a 
man  is  honest,  everything  he  looks  on  is  honest, 
and  if  he  sees  a  thief  carrying  off  your  goods,  it 
becomes  an  honest  act  thereby!  The  words 
mean  in  common  sense  only  this,  that  if  a  man  is 
pure  down  at  the  depths  of  his  heart,  he  is  able 
to  resist  all  impure  influences  and  come  out  from 
them  still  pure.  Doubtless  there  are  persons 
to  whom  the  suggestive  stories  and  paintings 
which  are  so  exploited  by  their  defenders  have 
lost  their  moral  peril.  It  is  idle  to  pretend  that 
they  have  lost  such  peril  for  all  men.  Let  them 
be  saved  for  those  who  can  see  them  safely.  Let 
our  public  galleries  and  our  public  prints  be  ex- 
empted from  them.  It  is  hard  enough  for  many 
men  to  be  pure  and  clean  ;  let  not  others  for 
their  own  pleasure  throw  temptations  in  their  way. 
There  are  not  many  evil  influences  more  in- 
sidious than  the  laxity  of  the  marriage  bond. 
There  are  some  good  legal  safeguards  thrown 
around  it  More  are  needed.  There  is  danger 
even  in  the  effort  to  safeguard  it  by  law,  that 
marriage  will  become  a  merely  legal  and  civil 
contract.  Doubtless  much  of  the  shame  of  our 
divorce  courts  issuer  from  the  feeling  that  since 


164    THE  SEVENTH  COMMANDMENT 

the  state  makes  the  bond,  the  state  can  break  it. 
Let  it  be  clear  that  there  is  vastly  more  in  the 
marriage  relation  than  the  act  of  the  state.  The 
true  bond  is  not  made  by  the  state.  Marriage, 
when  it  is  what  it  should  be,  is  the  blending  of 
two  lives  according  to  the  wish  and  purpose  of 
God — it  is  nothing  short  of  that.  We  have 
learned  to  scoff  at  the  saying  of  our  fathers  that 
marriages  are  made  in  heaven.  We  are  none 
the  better  for  any  lower  theory  of  their  origin. 
Certainly  marriages  that  do  not  grow  out  of  love, 
that  have  other  arguments,  without  love,  are 
mockeries  of  marriage.  And  love,  honest,  pure 
love  of  man  for  woman  and  woman  for  man,  is 
like  all  noble  love  ;  it  is  from  God.  When  He 
blends  heart  to  heart  and  hand  to  hand,  there  is 
true  marriage.     The  state  only  seals  the  vow. 

The  prevailing  ideas  of  marriage  are  too  lax, 
too  easy-going.  A  boy  and  a  girl  can  leave 
home  quietly  one  day,  and  give  to  each  other 
vows  of  life  until  death  do  them  part,  keep  it 
secret  from  their  parents,  and  live  the  wretched 
lie  of  a  single  life  when  they  are  married,  then 
disclose  their  relation  and  have  it  counted  a  rare 
joke.  Vows  so  easily  made  are  easily  unmade. 
In  such  light  taking  of  vows  is  social  ruin. 
Young  people  who  hardly  know  each  other,  who 


PKESEOT  DAY  PUKITY  165 

have  not  found  out  their  true  characters,  may 
now  slip  into  these  vows  as  readily  as  they  may 
make  an  engagement  for  a  dance  or  an  excursion. 
Silly  young  girls  and  beardless  youths  assert 
their  devotion  for  each  other  against  the  counsel 
of  parents  and  have  defenders  among  their 
equally  young  friends,  who  point  to  their  honey- 
moon happiness  as  evidence  of  their  own  wisdom, 
but  forget  to  point  to  their  after  wretchedness  as 
evidence  of  their  folly.  Young  people  between 
whom  there  can  be  nothing  in  common  at  the 
depths  of  their  nature  join  themselves  for  life 
without  that  solemn  care  or  that  solemn  sense  of 
responsibility  that  befits  so  important  a  relation. 
Be  sure  that  no  laws  will  ever  cure  such  folly. 
No  law  can  teach  a  young  man  the  responsibility 
of  the  family  life  so  that  he  accepts  the  relation- 
ship soundly  and  soberly,  without  delirium  or 
foolish  fancy.  No  civil  law  can  make  a  young 
woman  fit  to  be  the  head  of  a  home,  able  to  per- 
form its  duties,  to  weave  those  bonds  which  bind 
the  parts  of  the  family  together.  Divorce  is  not 
a  cause  of  the  difficulty.  Eather,  it  is  caused  by 
the  difficulty.  The  true  causes  lie  farther  back. 
They  root  at  the  last  in  selfishness  on  one  side  or 
both,  the  loss  of  self-control,  the  ideal  of  pleasure 
rather  than  happiness,  a  refusal  to  bear  hardship 


166    THE  SEVENTH  COMMANDMENT 

for  love's  sake,  and  so  the  loss  of  love — selfish- 
ness at  the  heart  of  it  all.  And  laws  cannot 
cure  selfishness.  Only  better  training  of  boys 
and  girls  in  homes,  a  larger  infusion  of  common 
sense,  a  return  to  sane  speech  and  feeling  about 
marriage,  an  acceptance  of  the  divine  ideal  of 
the  relationship,  can  work  ultimate  cure.  But 
laws  may  do  something. 

For  one  thing,  it  is  manifest  that  it  ought  to 
be  made  more  difficult  for  marriage  vows  to  be 
taken.  The  requirement  of  a  license  is  not  the 
law  in  some  states,  and  it  was  opposed  in  some 
where  it  is  now  the  law.  But  we  might  wisely 
require  such  publicity  as  shall  make  the  secret 
marriages  impossible.  Whether  it  be  by  pub- 
lishing the  bans  for  two  or  three  weeks  in  some 
public  way,  or  by  forbidding  the  issuance  of  a 
license  except  under  conditions  of  its  publication 
for  a  given  length  of  time  before  its  validity  is 
insured,  or  in  other  ways,  is  not  so  much  the 
question,  as  that  it  shall  become  impossible  for 
secret  marriages  to  occur,  or  for  any  man  or 
woman  to  enter  the  marriage  relation  without 
full  knowledge  on  the  part  of  those  who  have  a 
right  to  know  all  the  facts.  That  implies  that 
marriage  is  more  than  a  personal  agreement.  It 
is  a  social  fact,  and  social  rights  may  never  fairly 


PEESENT  DAY  PUBITY  167 

be  left  out  of  account.  Before  the  personal  agree- 
ment is  consummated,  society  has  right  to  know 
and  recognize  it 

Having  made  it  more  difficult  to  form  the 
marriage  relation,  it  should  be  made  very  much 
more  difficult  to  gain  release  from  it  We  are 
disgraced  by  the  fact  that  one  in  every  five  hundred 
persons  in  this  country  is  a  divorced  person.  Some 
of  them  are  properly  divorced.  The  marriage  bond 
may  be  rightly  and  entirely  set  aside  in  presence 
of  the  sin  of  violation  of  this  commandment.  Of 
that  I  do  not  speak.  But  what  are  the  feelings 
of  a  man  who  loves  the  family  and  believes  it  is 
essential  to  society,  as  he  thinks  that  there  are 
forty -two  grounds  for  divorce  among  the  various 
states  of  the  union  ?  Over  against  that,  set  the 
explicit  statement  of  Jesus,  that  for  divorce 
properly  there  is  but  one  ground.  There  may  be 
many  reasons  for  what  we  may  call  legal  sepa- 
ration. With  that  I  have  little  to  do  now  and 
little  concern.  But  I  have  much  concern  with 
the  reasons  for  the  absolute  divorce  which  sets  a 
man  and  a  woman  free  from  one  bond  and  per- 
111  its  them  to  form  another.  Infidelity  to  the 
marriage  relation  constitutes  such  an  absolute 
severing  of  the  bond.  It  is  as  though  it  had  not 
been,  save  for  the  scar  of  pain  on  the  heart  of 


168    THE  SEVENTH  COMMANDMENT 

the  offended  one.  But  if  there  be  reasons  why 
two  cannot  agree,  or  if  it  be  to  the  ruin  of  the 
happiness  of  either  for  the  two  to  live  together  as 
man  and  wife,  let  the  law  of  the  state  furnish 
right  to  separate,  but  let  there  be  no  annulling  of 
the  bond  of  marriage.  The  word  of  God  and  the 
nature  of  the  case  utterly  forbid  it.  Let  there  be 
made  plain  distinction  between  divorce  and 
separation,  and  let  those  who  are  separated  for 
any  other  cause  than  the  great  offence  which 
blasts  the  offender  and  marks  him  for  banishment 
of  decent  society,  let  them  know  that  they  are  yet 
married  and  one  in  God's  sight,  and  not  free  to 
assume  other  vows. 

We  are  not  forgetting  the  good  facts  which  are 
so  ready  at  hand— the  thousands  of  homes  which 
are  glad  and  bright,  where  love  is  the  law.  It  is 
well  to  remind  ourselves  of  the  fact  that  the  num- 
ber of  golden  weddings  celebrated  each  year  is 
almost  equal  to  the  number  of  divorces,  and  that 
the  silver  marriages  far  outnumber  the  divorces. 
If  ever  you  feel  depressed  or  saddened,  think  on 
that.  When  you  meet  men  who  are  arguing  that 
marriage  has  failed  to  bring  happiness,  remind 
yourself  how  many  there  are  who  bear  glad  testi- 
mony to  its  benediction.  It  is  true  that  7, 700 
husbands  deserted  their  wives  in  New  York  City 


PKESENT  DAY  PUEITY  169 

last  year.  But  it  is  true  that  fifty  times  as  many 
were  drawn  into  nearer  covenant  as  the  year  went 
on,  living  better,  manlier  lives  because  of  the 
marriage  bond. 

Out  of  it  all,  what  are  the  lessons?  Two. 
First,  the  commandment  is  not  kept  if  we  do  not 
think  pure  thoughts.  Whatever  the  outer  life 
may  be,  the  commandment  requires  that.  Ab- 
stain from  every  appearance  of  evil.  One  of  my 
medical  friends  claims  that  he  can  walk  along 
the  street  and  single  out  every  man  who  habit- 
ually thinks  impurely.  He  says  it  is  in  his  face. 
Can  that  be  true  to  a  man  who  is  wise  in  such 
matters!  How  much  more  must  it  be  true  to 
Him  who  is  able  to  see  through  our  lives,  and 
not  merely  to  see  our  faces  ?  No  man  can  treas- 
ure evil  thoughts  and  let  them  remain  in  his 
heart.  They  are  like  the  plant  that  starts  in  the 
recesses  of  your  porch,  hid  from  your  sight,  but 
which  presently  begins  to  creep  out  into  light. 
If  the  fountain  be  impure,  be  sure  the  stream  will 
presently  be  fouled.  No  man  can  think  foul 
thoughts,  no  man  can  meditate  on  things  that  are 
unworthy  without  paying  the  price  for  it  in  his 
manhood.  Put  away  from  you  all  filthy  sug- 
gestions of  every  kind.  They  will  flash  through 
your  mind,  but  you  can  put  them  out.     Howl 


170    THE  SEVENTH  COMMANDMENT 

Not  by  some  mere  effort  of  your  will.  Jesus 
taught  us  the  true  way  in  His  parable  of  the  evil 
spirit  that  was  in  a  man.  The  man  drove  it  out 
one  day,  and  cleaned  out  his  heart,  leaving  it 
vacant  and  untenanted.  Presently  the  spirit  came 
again,  and  found  the  house  empty  and  swept  and 
garnished,  and  came  in  and  took  possession, 
bringing  with  him  seven  others  worse  than  him- 
self. The  man's  heart  should  have  been  tenanted 
with  good  spirits  and  there  would  have  been  no 
room  for  the  evil  spirit.  How  is  a  man  to  keep 
from  impure  thoughts?  By  thinking  pure  ones. 
Every  man  ought  to  have  his  mind  so  stored  with 
clean  thoughts,  with  the  best  thoughts  of  the 
best  men,  that  he  is  not  so  impoverished  he  can 
think  only  the  worst  thoughts.  No  man  can 
hinder  the  evil  thought  from  creeping  into  his 
mind.  Any  man  can  keep  it  from  staying  there. 
For  if  it  stay,  it  will  work  its  damnation  in  due 
time. 

This  secondly.  Keep  pure  associations.  Evil 
communications  corrupt  good  manners — so  says 
the  old  version.  The  new  makes  it  plainer  still : 
"Evil  companionships  corrupt  good  morals." 
We  would  be  strangely  ignorant  if  we  did  not 
know  it  There  are  some  evil  associations  from 
which  we  cannot  rid  ourselves.  There  are  evil- 
minded  friends  who  love  to  spue  out  upon  us 


PEESENT  DAY  PUEITY  171 

their  own  malicious  suggestions.  Against  them 
we  can  only  erect  the  barrier  of  aggressive  purity. 
But  those  companionships  which  we  may  control 
we  must  control.  And  as  it  is  perilous  to  have 
an  evil  companion,  so  it  is  dangerous  to  be  one. 

But  what  is  our  hope?  Not  in  rules  which 
some  one  may  lay  down  in  essays  or  out  of  them. 
No.  Rather  our  hope  is  in  the  presence  and 
power  of  Jesus  Christ  in  our  lives.  He  would 
make  such  evil  impossible  to  us.  Every  man 
who  makes  a  brave  fight  for  the  clean  life  with  no 
scoundrelly  argument  for  the  right  to  be  impure, 
which  he  would  never  grant  to  his  wife  or  his 
sister,  every  woman  who  stands  clean  and  sweet 
and  pure  in  the  midst  of  the  world's  evil,  helps  to 
keep  the  commandment  in  the  lives  of  the  tempted 
and  the  falling. 

And  is  there  hope  for  him  who  has  fallen,  whose 
life  is  stained  t  Is  there  hope  for  the  woman  who 
has  fallen  and  bears  the  mark  of  the  outcast  t 
Ah,  yes.  For  this  sin,  too,  there  is  a  fountain  of 
cleansing.  No  sin  so  black  that  it  cannot  be  taken 
from  a  repentant  heart  If  there  be  any  man  who 
loathes  his  sin  and  hates  his  shame,  let  him  take 
the  pardon  of  the  crucified  Christ,  let  him  take 
the  power  of  the  ever  living  Christ,  able  to  con- 
trol the  fiercest  fires  of  passion  and  hold  his  life 
to  its  purity  and  strength. 


IX 

PRESENT  DAY  HONESTY 
(Tlw  Eighth  Commandment) 

Thou  shalt  not  steal.—  Exodus  20  :  15. 
■  There  are  nimble-minded  men  who  find  ways 
of  aligning  this  commandment  with  a  denial  of 
the  right  of  private  property.  To  most  of  us, 
without  aggressively  revolutionary  theories,  it 
plainly  implies  that  right/  What  is  mine  is 
mine,  what  is  yours  is  yours ;  and  while  I  may 
get  what  is  yours  and  make  it  mine,  it  must  be 
in  ways  that  take  account  of  you  and  leave  you 
gainer  as  well.  If  the  thing  that  was  yours  be- 
comes mine  at  your  cost,  I  have  somehow  done 
violence  to  this  commandment.  Eoom  is  left,  of 
course,  for  wide  discussion  as  to  the  things  which 
I  may  hold  against  you.  There  may  be  many 
things  which  men  have  claimed  as  their  own, 
which  could  not  fairly  belong  to  any  one  man  or 
set  of  men.  There  may  be  great  commodities  to 
which  we  have  equal  right  from  which  I  might 
hold  you  back  by  fraud  or  force.  But  if  you 
have  nothing,  then  I  cannot  steal  it ;  and  if  no 
one  has  anything,  then  neither  of  us  can  steal  it 

nor  disregard  his  rights. 

172 


PBESENT  DAY  HONESTY  173 

At  first  thought,  we  have  come  upon  a  com- 
mandment which  does  not  bid  fair  to  bear  down 
very  heavily  on  us.  Whatever  we  may  not  be 
that  is  right  and  good,  at  least  we  are  honest 
We  do  not  steal.  Indeed,  it  is  one  of  the  good 
signs  of  the  time  that  we  resent  a  charge  of  dis- 
honesty so  vehemently.  We  are  committed  to 
that  line  of  Pope :  "  An  honest  man's  the  noblest 
work  of  God."  George  Washington  finds  re- 
sponse in  us  all  when  he  prays  that  whatever  he 
may  become  or  may  do,  he  may  attain  that  which 
he  counts  the  most  enviable  title,  "An  honest 
man." 

And  yet  we  have  found  most  of  these  com- 
mandments coming  nearer  home  to  us  than  we 
thought  at  first.  It  may  be  we  shall  find  our- 
selves in  poor  relation  to  this  one,  once  we  look 
squarely  at  its  meaning.  There  may  prove  to  be 
little  to  resent  in  the  saying  of  Hamlet  to  Polo- 
nius :  "  To  be  honest,  as  this  world  goes,  is  to  be 
one  man  picked  out  of  a  thousand." 

Certainly  if  you  think  of  what  we  may  call 
the  coarse  forms  of  dishonesty,  there  is  a  great 
amount  of  it.  The  very  locks  and  bolts  on  our 
doors  testify  to  our  fear  of  our  fellow  men.  The 
safeguards  which  large  institutions  must  throw 
around  their  most  important  positions,  the  bonds, 


174      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

the  guarantees,  are  not  all  explained  by  the  nat- 
ural wish  to  provide  against  failures  in  judgment 
which  might  cause  loss.  A  painful  amount  of 
costly  experience  has  revealed  that  the  moral 
character  of  men  requires  these  safeguards.  It 
is  true  that  some  men  are  encouraged  to  dis- 
honesty by  this  very  surveillance.  Suspect  a 
man  and  you  have  taken  the  first  step  towards 
making  him  the  evil  doer  you  suspect  him  to  be. 
Put  a  man  in  a  position  of  trust  and  say  to  him, 
"We  have  every  reason  to  suppose  you  are  a 
thief,  and  will  steal  the  coins  which  you  receive, 
and  here  is  this  device  and  this  plan  whereby  we 
mean  to  thwart  your  plan,"  and  you  have  put 
some  men  on  their  mettle  to  beat  your  game  by 
one  of  their  own.  That  does  not  take  away  the 
necessity  for  such  safeguards;  it  only  reveals 
anew  the  amount  of  dishonesty  there  is  hid  away 
in  the  human  heart.  Our  average  recorded  thefts 
and  robberies  in  large  ways  amount  to  more  than 
seven  million  dollars  annually.  Part  of  it  is  in 
forgeries,  stealing  the  good  name  and  credit  of 
men.  Part  is  in  public  offices.  Most  of  it  is  in 
sheer  betrayal  of  trusts.  But  the  figures  do  not 
take  account  of  petty  dishonesties,  burglaries, 
highway  robbery,  shoplifting,  offences  which  men 
commit  who  have  no  chance  to  do  the  great 


PBESENT  DAY  HONESTY  175 

things.  Nor  do  they  take  into  account  that 
which  the  moral  sense  of  men  would  count  steal- 
ing if  the  facts  were  known,  but  which  is  under 
cover  of  the  law.  Bradstreets  reported  once  that 
only  twenty  per  cent  of  the  business  failures  of 
a  long  period  of  years  were  traceable  to  legiti- 
mate causes,  like  undue  competition  or  adverse 
conditions  which  were  uncontrollable.  Some 
were  due  to  personal  incompetence,  but  the 
great  majority  of  business  failures  were  to  be 
traced  to  some  form  of  dishonesty,  not  necessarily 
within  the  firm,  but  in  some  way  involved. 

Nor  is  it  difficult  to  see  how  the  spirit  of  dis- 
honesty appears  in  the  methods  men  adopt  for 
getting  release  from  the  penalties  of  financial  fail- 
ure, where  no  dishonesty  is  charged.  Our  bank- 
ruptcy laws  are  necessary  provisions  for  releasing 
of  a  man  from  immediate  pressure.  When  a  man 
has  passed  through  the  bankruptcy  court,  what 
has  happened  1  Has  his  debt  been  wiped  out  t 
Yes,  legally.  But  by  no  means  morally.  He 
may  never  be  able  to  meet  his  obligations,  but 
they  hang  over  him  until  they  are  met.  The 
court  comes  to  his  aid  to  set  him  free  from  present 
entanglements  that  he  may  be  able  to  move  freely 
in  the  settlement  of  claims.  It  is  monstrous  that 
men  should  take  advantage  of  that  release  simply 


176      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

for  their  own  comfort.  In  that  is  dishonesty.  A 
penitentiary  warden  told  me  once  of  a  convict, 
whose  story  is  illuminating.  The  man  had  been 
arrested  for  stealing  ten  thousand  dollars.  He 
fought  the  charge  with  much  insulted  dignity,  but 
was  found  guilty.  His  term  was  a  long  one,  and 
he  was  an  exemplary  prisoner.  As  he  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  shorter  term  which  his  good  be- 
haviour brought  him,  he  began  to  plan  life  after 
his  release.  He  told  the  warden  he  meant  to  settle 
down  and  be  an  honest  man.  The  past  was  gone. 
He  wanted  to  find  some  good  business  opening 
where  he  could  live  down  his  reputation  as  a 
thief.  As  he  unfolded  his  plans,  the  warden  said, 
"Yes,  that  would  be  very  well,  but  where  can 
you  get  the  money  to  begin  the  enterprise  fw 
"Well,"  he  replied,  "of  course  I  have  the  ten 
thousand  I  was  put  in  here  for."  "  You  have  1 ff 
exclaimed  the  warden,  "Well,  you  ought  to  re- 
turn it."  "Eeturn  it?  What  I  have  been  in 
here  all  these  years  for  t n  He  had  come  to  feel 
that  the  punishment  blotted  out  the  crime.  That 
the  inherent  dishonesty  of  his  heart  was  still 
there,  he  could  not  be  brought  to  see. 

Now,  it  is  of  first  importance  that  we  keep  our 
moral  eyes  clear  on  all  these  matters.  We  are  to 
make  no  mistakes  because  the  amounts  involved 


PRESENT  DAY  HONESTY  177 

are  large.  I  do  not  know  who  wrote  them,  but  I 
remember  reading  some  time  ago  two  verses  which 
are  poor  poetry  but  which  say  an  important 
thing : 

"In  olden  times  when  people  heard 

Some  swindler  huge  had  come  to  grief, 
They  nsed  a  good  old  Saxon  word, 
And  called  that  man  a  thief. 

u  But  language  such  as  that  to-day 
Upon  men's  tender  feelings  grates  ; 
So  people  smile  and  simply  say, 
He — '  rehypothecates.' n 

There  are  some  sins  whose  very  bigness  takes 
away  their  moral  obliquity  for  us,  and  we  find  it 
difficult  to  call  them  by  their  right  names. 
There  is  a  manifest  reaction  to  the  better  thought. 
James  Russell  Lowell  is  the  prophet  of  our  time : 

"  In  vain  we  call  old  notions  fudge, 

And  bend  our  conscience  to  our  dealing  ; 
The  Ten  Commandments  will  not  budge, 
And  stealing  will  continue  stealing." 

We  have  gotten  on  somewhat  when  we  have 
learned  to  call  things  by  right  names.  In  the 
hope  that  that  is  true,  let  us  look  about  us  to  find 
the  spirit  of  the  times. 

There  are  few  sins  more  prevalent  than  that 
form  of  dishonesty  which  we  call  gambling.    It 


178      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

is  one  of  the  oldest  forms  of  sin.  Dr.  Paton  has 
said  that  he  has  never  found  a  native  in  the  South 
Sea  Islands  who  is  not  a  confirmed  and  expert 
gambler.  The  gaming  of  the  Chinese  is  men- 
tioned in  their  very  oldest  books.  The  earliest 
Egyptian  books  give  hint  of  it.  I  do  not  know 
whether  it  is  more  prevalent  now  than  it  has 
been  or  not,  but  I  know  how  shamefully  we  are 
offending  in  that  regard,  whatever  our  fathers 
did.  In  all  grades  of  society  the  fever  has 
spread.  Children  show  the  marbles  they  have 
won  from  their  playmates,  and  their  fathers  com- 
pliment them  on  their  shrewdness.  Groups  of 
small  boys  gather  and  throw  dice  for  their  pen- 
nies, or  toss  coins  on  their  bets.  Young  men 
risk  their  wages  on  the  outcome  of  a  race  which 
is  itself  dishonestly  run,  or  on  a  ball  game  or  on 
anything  else.  Women's  card  clubs  lose  their 
zest  if  prizes  and  small  bets  are  not  at  stake. 
Men  cannot  sit  down  to  a  common  game  of  any 
sort  without  betting  on  the  outcome.  In  many 
cases  it  is  the  eager  passion  to  get  money  easily, 
to  increase  one's  income  without  increasing  one's 
skill  or  effort — itself  a  ruinous  passion.  In 
many  cases  it  is  simply  to  put  spice  into  jaded 
lives  that  are  becoming  inane  for  very  lack  of 
substance. 


PRESENT  DAY  HONESTY  179 

It  is  suggestive  that  the  two  current  stories 
which  are  hailed  as  depicting  accurately  the  "so- 
ciety "  life  of  the  day,  one  showing  that  life  for 
America,  the  other  for  England,  should  both  turn 
on  gambling,  social  gambling.  Mrs.  Thurston's 
"  The  Gambler,' '  is  only  a  story  of  a  society  girl 
who  moves  among  her  kind  and  practices  their 
customs.  I  count  it  a  tract  for  the  time,  woefully 
needed,  disgracefully  needed.  Mrs.  Wharton's 
"House  of  Mirth"  is  the  story  of  an  American 
girl  who  gambles  as  all  the  rest  of  her  set  do, 
save  that  she  keeps  some  semblance  of  decency 
about  her.  All  this  happens  in  the  supposed 
smart  set,  from  which  no  nation  need  expect 
much.  Its  people  are  the  outer  twigs  in  its  life 
which  are  dying.  Of  themselves  they  are  of  no 
value  and  need  not  be  reckoned.  But  they  be- 
come a  serious  menace  in  that  they  suck  into 
their  circle  occasionally  lives  which  need  not  be 
ruined,  and  in  that  they  are  parasites  on  the  true 
social  body.  It  comes  near  us  when  we  realize 
that  their  gambling  is  not  a  whit  different  from 
our  own  when  we  cannot  enjoy  an  evening  with 
friends  without  contests  which  leave  them  or  our- 
selves poorer.  There  are  indignant  fathers  who 
have  broken  social  connections  because  their 
daughters  have  been  dragged  into  debt  to  a  sup- 


180      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

posed  hostess  over  a  game  of  bridge  whist.  It 
needs  to  be  plainly  understood  that  the  gambling 
which  our  police  hunt  out  in  the  dens  and  dives 
of  the  city  is  quite  as  legitimate  as  the  social 
gambling  whose  parties  would  be  outraged  if 
they  were  molested.  It  is  all  dishonest,  if  any 
of  it  is  dishonest. 

We  have  come  upon  bad  days  if  we  cannot  get 
pleasure  out  of  our  games  or  out  of  events  in 
which  we  participate  without  introducing  the 
elements  of  gambling.  If  a  company  of  men  and 
women  cannot  get  together  without  having  to 
find  their  enjoyment  in  the  possibility  of  leaving 
some  one  else  poorer  with  no  return,  which  is  the 
essence  of  gambling,  then  we  had  better  take 
stock  of  our  manhood.  That  sort  of  thing  weak- 
ens our  moral  fibre.  See  to  what  length  it  goes. 
When  Mr.  McKinley  lay  at  the  point  of  death,  bets 
of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  one  city  were 
hanging  on  his  living  at  a  certain  hour  or  pass- 
ing away  before  that  time.  His  death  was  simply 
the  object  of  a  bet  in  the  minds  of  some  of  our 
people.  A  certain  father  placed  a  debt  of  several 
hundred  dollars  with  a  sporting  man  to  cover  the 
life  of  his  little  girl  who  was  lying  in  a  hospital. 
Nothing  is  too  sacred,  once  the  gambling  fever 
lays  hold  on  one.    Jerry  MacAuley  knew  men 


PKESKNT  DAY  HONESTY  181 

well,  and  saw  the  power  of  the  grace  of  God  in 
their  lives  as  few  men  did,  yet  he  said  he  had 
seen  many  a  confirmed  drunkard  saved,  many  a 
libertine  purified,  many  a  thief  made  honest,  but 
of  all  the  gamblers  who  had  come  into  his  great 
mission,  from  men  high  in  their  dishonest  pro- 
fession to  men  who  were  addicted  to  gambling  in 
its  petty  forms,  of  all  the  gamblers  he  had 
known,  he  could  count  on  his  fingers  the  number 
that  had  been  saved. 

It  seems  a  peculiarly  damning  sin.  For  one 
thing  it  speedily  loosens  one's  moral  grip.  Your 
drunkard  will  not  defend  drinking ;  your  thief 
will  not  defend  stealing ;  your  liar  will  not  de- 
fend lying.  But  gambling  finds  defence ;  attack 
it  and  you  find  its  devotees  standing  up  for 
it,  thinking  at  any  rate  that  it  is  no  one  else's 
business.  That  is  the  evil  of  it ;  it  lowers  one's 
moral  tone.  It  even  seems  right  to  some  who 
practice  it.  They  talk  large  nonsense  about 
there  being  an  equivalent  for  the  other  man  in 
the  chance  which  he  has  to  get  something  from 
you  without  leaving  you  the  better,  or  about  the 
fact  that  you  agree  to  the  chance  to  lose  when 
you  go  into  it,  and  it  is  your  own  affair  if  you 
lose.  And  the  moral  impossibility  of  its  being 
made  right  to  take  from  the  other  with  no  return 


182      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

is  lost  sight  of.  Gambling  gives  moral  strabis- 
mus. Not  only  does  it  do  that,  but  it  is  fast  ruin- 
ing manly  sports.  Already  it  has  almost  robbed 
us  of  any  pleasure  there  is  in  the  running  of 
horses.  Only  a  most  verdant  man  would  risk  the 
opinion  that  horse  racing  is  clean  and  honest  any 
longer.  Betting  has  added  reasons  for  dishon- 
esty until  no  man  can  trust  appearances.  In  the 
racing  of  horses  there  need  be  no  evil,  but  even 
large  good,  but  any  moralist  who  cares  for  his 
standing  with  men  takes  that  character  in  his 
hand  when  he  says  even  so  much  as  I  have  now 
said. 

There  are  not  a  few  who  have  the  same  feeling 
about  athletic  events.  They  are  being  made  the 
occasion  of  so  much  risking  of  money  that  it  is 
not  far  to  the  place  when  they  will  be  influenced 
by  that  fact.  Many  of  our  colleges  are  dis- 
cussing the  dropping  of  intercollegiate  athletics, 
because  their  students  are  caught  in  the  swirl  of 
the  day  and  are  becoming  common  gamblers. 
The  loss  or  the  illegitimate  gain  of  the  students 
is  the  least  part  of  it.  The  lowering  of  the  whole 
moral  tone,  the  utter  destruction  of  any  fair 
sense  of  values,  the  fever  of  getting  something 
for  nothing,  the  disregard  for  moral  distinctions 
— these  are  the  real  results. 


PRESENT  DAY  HONESTY  183 

For  gambling  is  stealing,  violates  the  whole 
spirit  of  this  law.  It  disregards  the  rights  of  the 
other  man.  It  seeks  to  get  profit  for  one's  self 
without  return  to  the  other  man.  He  is  to  be  left 
poorer  for  my  advantage.  One  of  my  pupils  once 
said,  "Well,  in  any  bargain,  of  course  somebody 
is  the  poorer."  I  think  he  voiced  a  common 
feeling,  but  a  most  erroneous  one.  In  any  fair 
bargain,  both  parties  are  better  off.  You  have  a 
book  and  I  have  a  dollar.  When  we  exchange, 
that  is  because  the  dollar  means  more  to  you  than 
the  book  does,  so  that  you  are  better  off  when 
you  have  the  dollar ;  but  the  book  means  more  to 
me,  so  that  I  am  better  off  when  I  have  it.  That 
is  the  A  B  C  of  trading.  Gambling  disregards 
this  simple  law.  Moreover  it  seeks  to  gain  for 
one's  self  without  exertion  of  any  sort.  It  leaves 
all  the  exertion  to  some  one  else  and  hopes  to 
profit  by  that  exertion.  It  takes  another  man's 
property,  not  as  a  gift,  for  it  is  counted  won,  and 
not  with  any  recompense  which  leaves  him  the 
better. 

We  have  been  speaking  of  the  lesser  forms  of 
the  evil.  I  do  not  forget  that  it  has  larger  and 
more  complicated  forms.  The  necessity  for  deal- 
ing in  future  conditions,  the  necessity  for  con- 
tracts which  depend  on  prices  that  shall  obtain 


184      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

after  months  have  passed,  is  not  difficult  to  see. 
Such  dealing  and  such  contracts  may  be  perfectly- 
fair.  This  commandment  says  nothing  about 
them.  They  involve  an  estimating  of  the  future 
which  may  be  verified  or  may  fail,  and  there  is  an 
element  of  risk  in  any  such  transaction.  So  is 
there  when  a  dealer  buys  his  goods  for  the  next 
season's  trade.  But  when  any  man,  or  company 
of  men,  for  the  mere  sake  of  personal  gain  or  for 
vengeance  on  any  enemy,  combine  to  create  arti- 
ficial conditions  which  shall  not  represent  fair  and 
open  movements  of  trade,  either  "bearing"  the 
market  and  so  forcing  producers  to  receive  less 
for  their  services  than  they  should  receive,  or 
11  bulling"  the  market,  forcing  consumers  to  pay 
more  for  their  supplies  than  they  should  pay, 
why,  that  is  stealing.  I  use  no  technical  lan- 
guage, because  I  know  very  little  of  that  lan- 
guage, but  as  a  teacher  of  morals,  I  speak  that 
which  I  well  know.  And  all  men  who  have  to  do 
with  businesses  which  call  for  the  estimating  of 
future  conditions  and  the  making  of  contracts 
months  ahead,  know  how  narrow  is  the  frontier 
between  this  legitimate  business  and  the  illegiti- 
mate abuse  of  it  You  need  not  be  told  that  it  is 
the  scandal  of  mere  betting  on  the  prices  of  grain 
and  commodities  in  the  future  that  has  hedged 


PRESENT  DAY  HONESTY  185 

the  honest  business  with  so  many  burdensome 
laws.  There  are  shops  in  all  cities  in  which  men 
and  women  are  risking  their  small  sums  with  no 
shadow  of  honesty  in  their  purpose.  They  would 
not  know  wheat  if  they  saw  it,  and  have  no  place 
to  put  away  a  bushel  or  a  bucket  of  it,  if  they  had 
it  delivered  to  them.  For  them  there  is  no 
shadow  of  defence.  They  contribute  nothing  to 
the  good  of  the  commercial  world.  But  men  who 
have  a  large  place  in  the  commercial  world  need  to 
be  on  their  guard  constantly  against  mere  gam- 
bling, which  is  ruinous  to  our  commercial  life  as 
truly  as  the  petty  gambling  of  so  many  homes  and 
clubs  and  games  is  ruinous  to  our  social  life. 

Think  of  some  other  forms  which  the  spirit  of 
dishonesty  takes  in  our  day.  How  many  people 
are  looking  for  a  place  where  they  can  put  in  a 
little  and  get  out  a  great  deal !  How  the  increase 
is  gotten  they  either  do  not  know  or  they  are 
readily  deceived  by  specious  explanations.  How 
many  wildcat  schemes  there  are  for  getting  some- 
thing for  nothing !  It  all  comes  back  to  that. 
Why  do  we  find  goods ;  even  foods  for  little  chil- 
dren, adulterated  t  Would  it  not  seem  that  milk, 
at  least,  might  be  safe,  and  that  men  who  hold  in 
their  power  the  lives  of  little  children  need  not  be 
asked  to  be  honest?    Or  drugs—must  we  be  on 


186      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

our  guard  that  our  very  lives  be  safe  at  the  hands 
of  men  who  make  the  compounds  which  are  for 
our  healing  ?  Who  does  not  know  the  reason  for 
it  all  I  Suppose  water  were  more  expensive  than 
milk,  or  suppose  the  substituted  drug  were  not 
cheaper  than  the  required  one  ?  It  is  dishonesty, 
the  effort  to  get  something  for  nothing.  Or  note 
our  rush  for  bargains.  See  how  much  it  means 
to  some  that  an  article  is  offered  at  less  than  its 
cost.  Is  that  because  we  are  poor  and  must  save 
money?  Sometimes,  doubtless,  as  sometimes 
there  are  fair  offers  of  the  sort.  There  come  sea- 
sons of  the  year  when  the  profit  of  certain  goods 
is  gladly  forfeited  that  they  may  be  removed. 
But  what  is  there  to  explain  the  craze  of  some 
persons  for  bargains?  Why  are  some  people 
singled  out  by  their  friends  as  peculiarly  able  to 
find  bargains?  Why  do  some  wish  that  they 
were  better  shoppers  ?  In  one  of  the  religious 
papers  a  few  years  ago,  a  quantity  of  lace  was 
advertised  for  sale.  The  price  was  so  very  low 
that  explanation  was  given.  It  was  that  the  lace 
was  made  in  Ireland  by  the  peasants  who  live  so 
poorly  that  they  are  glad  to  get  seventeen  cents  a 
day  for  their  work.  Yes,  and  we  congratulate 
ourselves  that  we  are  able  to  buy  this  that  we 
need  so  cheap.    And  we  even  befuddle  ourselves 


PRESENT  DAY  HONESTY  187 

with  supposing  that  it  is  none  of  our  business. 
But  keep  in  mind  this  common  fact,  that  when 
you  buy  anything  for  less  than  it  is  really  worth, 
you  are  profiting  by  some  one  else's  misfortune. 
You  may  not  be  at  all  to  blame  for  that  but  the 
realization  may  well  temper  the  exultation  with 
which  such  a  condition  is  many  times  greeted. 
It  would  be  well  that  it  be  so  put  before  us  that 
a  bargain  would  have  no  temptation  for  us  unless 
we  know  all  the  terms  of  it,  and  know  that  we  are 
not  selfish  in  our  enj  oyment  of  it.  It  is  the  meaner 
part  in  us  which  finds  pleasure  in  the  opportunity 
to  profit  by  a  bankrupt  sale,  gaining  by  the  loss 
of  another  man. 

What  shall  be  said  of  the  dishonesty  of  living 
beyond  one's  means,  of  the  creating  of  obliga- 
tions which  cannot  be  met  t  It  is  not  the  vice 
of  the  rich  alone.  It  is  sadly  the  vice  of  young 
men  and  women,  who  adopt  the  standard  of  living 
set  by  some  one  else.  A  friend  with  larger  in- 
come or  fewer  demands  does  a  certain  thing,  buys 
this  or  goes  into  that ;  shall  not  I  do  the  same  t 
Then  comes  the  long  story  of  debt  and  dishonour, 
and  many  times  dishonesty  that  is  undeniable. 
But  it  is  dishonesty  from  the  first  It  involves 
contracts  which  one  cannot  meet 

A  young  man,  far  away  from  the  city,  looking 


188      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

back  into  its  life  and  sitting  in  kindly  judgment 
on  it,  has  written  me  a  letter,  which  sums  up 
what  many  of  us  feel  about  city  life.  My  mem- 
ory is  not  charged  with  exact  words,  but  he  says 
this  : — The  thing  that  is  lacking  is  old-fashioned 
honesty.  People  are  greedy  and  are  seeking  the 
short  cut  to  wealth,  a  path  always  full  of  pitfalls. 
A  man  from  the  country  usually  comes  to  the 
city  honest.  He  soon  finds  a  great  demand  on 
his  purse,  things  which  were  luxuries  in  a  village 
appear  necessities  in  a  large  city.  He  soon  be- 
gins to  do  little  things  which  are  dishonest  but 
which  he  sees  others  doing.  He  gets  caught  in 
the  rush  and  hardly  notices  that  he  is  doing 
them.  Not  many  people  in  a  city  will  steal,  my 
friend  says.  That  is  repugnant  to  them.  But  to 
pay  a  city  employee  to  have  a  street  in  the  way  of  a 
factory  closed,  or  a  county  officer  to  assess  one's 
property  low — that  is  different.  A  city  or  a 
county  is  an  intangible  thing,  and  to  take  from  it 
is  hardly  stealing.  In  this  way  our  officials  are 
corrupted  and  new  reason  is  given  in  their  cor- 
ruption for  dishonesty  in  personal  relation  to  the 
city.  Few  men  are  willing  to  pay  the  assessed 
taxes  because  they  feel  sure  that  much  of  their 
money  will  never  get  to  legitimate  service  in  the 
city  life.     But  that  very  fact  increases  the  argu- 


PEESENT  DAY  HONESTY  189 

ment  which  makes  dishonesty  possible.  My  cor- 
respondent shows  shrewd  observation  of  the  facts. 
There  needs  to  be  writ  large  over  the  door  of 
every  public  office  in  this  city,  over  the  desk  of 
every  business  house,  over  the  charter  of  every 
institution  and  corporation : — Thou  shalt  not 
steal.  If  it  were  there,  and  were  obeyed,  the  prob- 
lems of  our  city  and  social  life  would  be  put  far 
on  towards  their  solution. 

A  few  years  ago  I  put  to  more  than  a  score  of 
men  the  direct  question  :  What  do  you  consider 
the  chief  need  of  the  present  day?  The  men 
were  all  eminent  in  their  lines — political,  legal, 
medical,  commercial,  ecclesiastical.  It  was  start- 
ling to  have  them  all  give  the  same  reply,  with- 
out the  slightest  knowledge  that  others  were  be- 
ing asked.  The  mayor  of  the  second  city  in  the 
country  worded  that  common  reply  most  tersely  : 
"  The  need  of  the  present  day  is  just  common 
honesty."  All  enlargements  on  that  answer  left 
it  intact.  In  all  departments  that  is  the  declared 
need.  Another  worded  it :  "  The  trouble  to-day 
is  not  infidelity  but  unfidelity,  a  slack  sense  of 
personal  obligation."  At  that  time,  he  foretold 
with  striking  exactness  revelations  in  great  trust 
agencies  which  have  since  saddened  all  honest 
hearts  and  outraged  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation. 


190      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

Men  who  would  not  steal  a  penny  from  your 
pocket  will  allow  themselves  to  receive  exorbi- 
tant salaries  out  of  trust  funds,  and  will  be 
parties  to  administrative  extravagance  which  is 
nothing  short  of  robbery.  When  their  attention 
is  called  to  it,  they  are  quick  to  try  correcting  it, 
and  they  even  make  certain  sorts  of  restitution. 
Much  that  has  been  taken  cannot  be  restored, 
niore's  the  shame.  The  bad  effect  on  commer- 
cial standards  cannot  be  overcome.  The  lower- 
ing of  moral  tone  cannot  be  corrected  by  tardy 
and  enforced  restitution.  Recently  I  talked  with 
a  large  manufacturer  and  quoted  to  him  as  a  jest 
the  saying  that  is  going  the  rounds,  that  it  is  no 
longer  a  question  whether  the  constitution  follows 
the  flag,  but  whether  restitution  follows  the 
swag.  He  did  not  even  smile.  He  is  a  leader  in 
the  political  reform  of  another  city,  and  his  heart 
is  sore.  "Restitution!"  he  said.  " I  would  to 
God  there  were  some  way  of  restoring  to  us  what 
we  have  lost  beyond  money  value  !"  Robbing 
the  city  by  "honest  graft"  even  has  its  de- 
fenders. Charging  the  city  double  prices  ;  stand- 
ing in  with  departments  or  with  the  buyers  of 
large  business  houses — that  is  counted  legitimate. 
Do  not  misunderstand  all  this.  I  am  not  of 
those  who  cry  there  are  no  more  honest  men,  that 
business  and  government  are  rotten  at  heart. 


PBESENT  DAY  HONESTY  191 

The  overwhelming  body  of  office  holders  are 
thoroughly  honest  both  in  personal  character  and 
in  regard  for  the  rights  of  the  people.  There  is 
a  great  body  of  men  high  in  public  life  against 
whom  no  fair  charge  can  be  brought.  So  is  the 
main  current  of  commercial  life  clear  and  pure. 
Eecent  events  in  the  public  records,  elections,  in- 
vestigations, disclosures,  reveal  much  evil,  but 
they  reveal  the  soundness  of  heart  of  the  rank 
and  file  of  men.  But  after  a  firm  believer  in  his 
fellows  and  his  land  has  said  his  strongest  word, 
there  remains  the  reigning  sin  of  dishonesty  in 
things  large  and  small.  Not  a  man  reading  this 
line  who  at  some  point  in  his  life  is  not  being 
robbed,  and  that  without  redress. 

But  I  am  sure  all  this  must  seem  rather  large 
and  vague  to  some  readers.  What  can  you  do 
about  it  t  First  of  all,  of  course,  whatever  others 
about  you  are,  you  can  be  thoroughly  and  scru- 
pulously honest  in  your  regard  for  the  rights  of 
others.  If  there  is  any  habit  of  your  life  that 
weakens  your  high  regard  for  those  rights  you 
can  break  it  off.  If  you  are  in  any  office  and 
have  been  making  use  of  articles  which  are  not 
fairly  yours  to  use,  or  have  been  gaining  for 
yourself  information  which  is  meant  for  your 
firm  and  not  for  yourself,  you  can  cease  all  such 
things.    You  say  they  are  small  things.    Yes, 


192      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

and  you  are  a  small  member  of  the  common- 
wealth, but  if  you  do  not  abstain  from  small  dis- 
honesties, why  should  a  man  of  large  responsibil- 
ities abstain  from  large  dishonesties  t 

Then,  you  can  take  a  fair  and  right  view  of 
your  neighbour's  rights,  looking  upon  them  as 
you  know  Christ  would  have  looked  on  them. 
That  will  cure  us  of  that  selfishness  which  is  the 
underlying  fact  of  all  dishonesty.  You  can  set 
your  regard  for  manhood  above  your  regard  for 
things.  In  the  Paradise  Lost  there  are  few  finer 
touches  or  touches  truer  to  the  facts  than  that 
wherein  Milton  pictures  Mammon  as  the  least 
erect  of  all  the  angels  even  before  he  fell,  "who 
went  about  with  eyes  rather  for  the  pavement  of 
the  heavenly  streets,  trodden  gold,"  than  for  the 
high  and  noble  beauties  of  the  place.  You  can 
guard  your  life  from  getting  so  under  the  spell 
of  possessions  that  you  can  be  brought  to  over- 
look the  rights  of  others  for  your  own  advantage. 
For  even  Christ  pleased  not  Himself. 

But  more  important  than  all  that : — You  can 
be  absolutely  honest  with  God.  Honesty  with 
others  will  take  care  of  itself.  All  our  argu- 
ments in  behalf  of  unfairness  proceed  on  the 
opinion  that  what  we  have  is  our  own.  In  truest 
sense  it  is  not  our  own,  and  we  are  not  free  to  do 
with  it  what  we  will.    Over  our  claim  there  is 


PEESEKT  DAY  HONESTY  193 

the  double  claim  of  society  and  of  God.  I  have 
no  right  to  waste  my  money.  I  have  no  right  to 
throw  it  in  the  river,  because  that  robs  society 
which  it  ought  to  serve  through  me.  I  have  no 
right  to  use  it  for  the  worse  part  of  my  life,  to 
buy  with  it  anything  that  degrades  me  or  de- 
velops the  lower  side  of  my  life,  because  that 
robs  my  better  life  and  again  robs  society  which 
has  right  to  have  me  at  my  best  and  not  at  my 
worst  But  I  have  no  right  to  hold  it  for  my 
own  low  pleasures  because  that  robs  God  who  has 
higher  claim  on  it  and  on  me.  The  old  prophet 
called  out  over  the  people  of  Israel :  Will  a  man 
rob  God  t  And  when  the  people  indignantly  re- 
plied that  they  had  not  robbed  God,  the  prophet 
replied  with  words  true  to  this  day,  Ye  have 
robbed  Me  in  tithes  and  in  offerings.  The  com- 
mandment covers  the  regard  we  owe  to  the  rights 
of  God  in  ourselves  and  our  possessions.  There 
are  many  followers  of  Christ  who  are  scrupu- 
lously honest  with  their  grocers  and  their  bakers 
who  keep  no  fair  standing  with  God  who  has  first 
claim  on  them.  The  time  which  He  claims,  the 
money  which  He  calls  for,  the  strength  which  He 
demands  in  His  kingdom,  the  very  life  of  the 
servant  whom  He  has  redeemed — these  are  with- 
held from  Him.  In  all  our  reckoning  of  our 
honesty,  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves  that  fairness 


194      THE  EIGHTH  COMMANDMENT 

in  the  small  things  of  human  relations  will  com- 
pensate for  unfairness  in  the  higher  things. 

And  after  all,  no  better  service  is  rendered  to 
the  race  of  men  than  the  example  of  clear,  sun- 
clear  honesty.  There  are  some  of  you  will  never 
be  wealthy,  and  who  will  never  be  known  in  a 
wide  circle  of  people,  but  who  will  leave  a  goodly 
heritage  in  the  eyes  of  men,  for  they  will  count  you 
honest  men.  They  will  know  that  in  your  hands 
the  affairs  of  others  will  be  safe ;  they  will  know 
that  you  may  be  trusted  under  guard  and  without 
guard.  Let  others  found  institutions,  let  them 
make  great  contributions  to  public  welfare — it  is 
well  and  we  rejoice,  but  let  every  man  bow  in 
gratitude  for  a  life  that  bequeaths  to  society  and 
the  church  a  better  spirit  of  honesty.  Others  of 
you  will  be  wealthy.  God  bless  you  in  it,  but  do 
you  see  to  it  that  your  wealth  comes  to  you  with 
no  stain  on  it,  and  that  it  goes  down  to  your 
heirs  unstained.  Let  it  be  said  of  you  that  you 
at  least  were  one  man  picked  out  of  a  thousand. 
For  only  so  can  the  wish  of  Christ  for  your  life 
be  fulfilled.  I  am  not  now  saying  whether  hon- 
esty is  the  best  policy  or  not ;  I  am  only  saying 
that  for  the  servant  of  Jesus  Christ  it  is  the  only 
policy,  and  by  it  alone  can  he  serve  that  King- 
dom which  is  founded  on  Him  who  is  the  Truth. 


X 

PRESENT  DAY  VERACITY 
{The  Ninth  Commandment) 

Thou  ahalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbour. — EX- 
ODUS 20 :  16. 

The  eighth  commandment  which  forbids  steal- 
ing and  this  ninth  commandment  which  forbids 
false  witness  belong  together.  They  are  both  in 
the  interests  of  honesty.  The  eighth  command- 
ment deals  with  honesty  in  possessions,  the  ninth 
commandment  deals  with  honesty  in  communica- 
tion. 

This  ninth  commandment,  "Thou  shalt  not 
bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbour,"  has 
had  an  interesting  history.  Two  mistaken  ac- 
cents have  been  applied  to  it.  There  were  some 
who  laid  stress  on  the  word  "against."  "Thou 
shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neigh- 
bour," but  false  witness  which  was  in  his  favour 
might  be  defended.  That  is,  if  the  false  witness 
which  you  bear  is  in  the  interests  of  kindness 
and  charity,  then  this  commandment  was  not  to 
be  considered.  There  were  others  who  accented 
the  last  word.  "Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  wit- 
ness against  thy  neighbour,"  but  so  far  as  any  one 
else  was  concerned  the  commandment  does  not 
195 


196       THE  NINTH  COMMANDMENT 

apply.  In  those  two  mistaken  accents  there  lie 
the  roots  for  most  defence  of  falsehood  in  any 
form.  Here  is  a  man  who  will  do  anything  for 
his  friend.  He  will  bear  any  measure  of  false 
witness  in  his  favour.  That  is  the  meaning  of 
that  first  accent.  Here  is  a  man  who  will  not 
cheat  his  Mend,  but  must  always  be  watched  by 
either  his  enemy  or  a  stranger.  That  is  the  sec- 
ond mistaken  accent.  You  can  trust  him  within 
his  own  immediate  circle  but  out  of  that  he  needs 
to  be  watched.  I  have  seen  men  flame  up  indig- 
nantly because  a  man  has  started  a  lie  against 
a  fellow  club  member.  In  college  I  have  seen 
students  to  whom  it  was  especially  heinous  to 
start  a  falsehood  on  a  member  of  the  same  fra- 
ternity or  literary  society.  Of  course  it  was 
measurably  wrong  to  do  any  such  thing  against 
any  one,  but  this  was  a  case  of  bearing  false 
witness  against  your  neighbour. 

Well,  there  cannot  be  much  doubt  as  to  the 
scope  of  this  commandment.  It  is  one  which 
determines  the  relation  which  we  shall  hold 
towards  our  fellows  in  the  matter  of  communica- 
tion. We  are  so  bound  in  the  same  bundle  of 
life  that  if  you  bear  false  witness  in  my  favour 
because  I  am  your  friend,  you  are  in  that  very 
fact  bearing  witness  false  to  society,  which  is 
equally  your  neighbour.  And  also,  if  it  seems 
to  us  that  there  is  any  man  who  is  not  our  neigh- 
bour in  the  sense  of  this  commandment,  we  need 


PKESENT  DAY  VEEACITY  197 

to  sit  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and  let  Him  teach  that 
the  Samaritan,  the  outcast,  the  man  farthest 
away  from  us,  is  a  man  with  all  claims  of  neigh- 
bourliness upon  us.  The  commandment  mani- 
festly calls  for  a  right  relation,  a  relation  of 
truthfulness  between  man  and  man.  This  prin- 
ciple may  guide  us  in  our  thought  of  it,  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  every  man  to  establish  and  maintain 
right  relations  between  himself  and  his  fellows, 
and  so  far  as  he  has  power  between  man  and 
man.  Anything  of  communication  which  affects 
adversely  that  relation  is  to  be  avoided.  What- 
ever helps  it  and  safeguards  it  is  to  be  approved. 
Trace  for  a  moment  the  place  falsehood  has 
had  in  the  history  of  men.  Take  it  in  Scripture 
alone.  See  how  sin  came  into  the  world  by  the 
gateway  of  a  falsehood.  It  was  Satan's  decep- 
tion of  our  first  parents  by  a  partial  truth  which 
was  itself  a  lie.  The  first  murderer  sought  in 
utterly  modern  ways  to  cover  up  his  sin  with  a 
lie.  Almost  every  one  of  the  great  patriarchs — 
Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  Judah — almost  all  of 
them  were  caught  at  some  time  in  a  lie,  and  they 
and  their  posterity  suffered  for  it.  When  it 
comes  to  the  Mosaic  law  falsehood  has  an  un- 
usually large  place.  Every  effort  is  made  to 
safeguard  the  people  against  a  tendency  to  false 
witnessing.  So  far  as  falsehood  is  perjury  in 
court  of  law  we  have  considered  it  already  in  our 
study  of  the  third  commandment     Throughout 


198       THE  NINTH  COMMANDMENT 

the  Mosaic  law,  however,  false  witness  does  not 
necessarily  involve  a  court.  The  law  of  libel  is 
very  plain,  the  starting  of  a  rumour  is  condemned, 
so  is  the  passing  it  in.  One  interesting  item  of 
the  Mosaic  law  is  that  if  a  man  bear  false  witness 
against  another,  then  he  is  to  suffer  the  penalty 
which  he  sought  to  briug  upon  the  innocent  man. 
The  liar  was  to  be  a  veritable  outcast.  His  sin 
was  made  equal  to  a  crime. 

History  after  the  Mosaic  law  has  the  same  sin- 
ister line  running  through  it.  You  remember 
Saul  and  his  falsehoods  to  Samuel.  You  remem- 
ber David.  Hardly  one  of  the  men  who  form  the 
line  running  through  Scripture  who  has  not 
somewhere  this  mark  on  him.  Coming  into  the 
literature  of  the  Scripture  you  find  it  equally. 
Some  of  the  most  heart-burdened  Psalms  are 
those  of  protest  against  falsehood.  Some  of  the 
keenest  Proverbs  are  against  it.  There  is  the 
very  clear-cut  saying,  "  A  poor  man  is  better 
than  a  liar," — a  proverb  much  needed  this  day  if 
we  do  not  believe  it.  If  a  man  can  become  rich 
by  sufficient  and  skillful  amount  of  falsehood  we 
think  he  is  so  much  better  off.  The  proverb  is 
still  true  in  spite  of  our  opinion.  The  poor  man 
is  better  at  every  point  of  consideration  than  a 
liar.  There  is  the  striking  proverb,  "A  man 
that  beareth  false  witness  against  his  neighbour 
is  a  maul,  and  a  sword,  and  a  sharp  arrow."  He 
is  a  maul  in  that  he  bruises  the  neighbour ;  he  is 


PRESENT  DAY  VEEACITY  199 

a  sword  in  that  the  sharp  edge  of  his  lie  cuts  him 
to  the  heart;  he  is  a  sharp  arrow  in  that  he 
pierces  his  very  life.  Then  there  is  perhaps  the 
most  striking  proverb,  "As  a  mad  man  who 
casteth  firebrands,  arrows,  and  death,  so  is  the 
man  that  deceiveth  his  neighbour,  and  saith,  Am 
not  I  in  sport?"  The  proverb  aims  at  those 
folly-stricken  people  who  suppose  that  if  only 
they  are  sufficiently  in  fun  any  amount  of  lying 
can  be  defended.  The  wise  man  characterizes 
such  men  well.  They  are  like  mad  men,  crazy, 
who  cast  firebrands,  arrows  and  death.  The 
starting  of  a  malicious  story  even  in  sport  is  a  far 
worse  thing  than  setting  fire  to  a  man's  house  as 
a  joke.  When  you  pass  out  of  the  Proverbs  into 
the  prophets  you  find  them  in  constant  wrath 
against  the  falsehood  of  people  in  their  dealing 
with  God  and  of  the  other  prophets  who  are  mis- 
leading the  people.  Jesus  Himself  had  the  high 
title  that  He  is  the  Truth.  He  came  to  bear 
witness  to  the  truth.  Men  rejected  Him  because 
they  would  not  hear  the  truth.  His  suffering 
was  at  the  hands  of  liars.  The  epistles  are 
charged  with  the  warning  against  falsehood.  In 
the  Revelation  we  come  out  to  the  awe-inspiring 
word  that  all  liars  and  those  who  love  and  make 
a  lie  are  cast  out  from  the  presence  of  God  into 
the  lake  that  burneth. 

But  the  demand  for  truth  is  not  Scriptural 
alone.     It  comes  out  of  the  heart  of  things.     All 


200       THE  NINTH  COMMANDMENT 

society  is  involved  when  we  begin  to  speak  of 
falsehood.  We  are  members  one  of  another,  and 
every  falsehood  strikes  at  the  fellowship  which 
we  hold  with  each  other.  Ninety  per  cent,  of  the 
business  of  this  country  is  done  on  credit,  and  the 
foundation  of  credit  is  character  and  trustworthi- 
ness. If  most  men  were  not  honest  the  great 
business  houses  of  New  York  would  close  in  a 
fortnight.  Make  what  safeguards  you  will,  the 
fact  is  that  there  is  not  a  firm  in  the  city  which 
could  not  be  ruined  if  it  were  not  walled  about 
with  the  honesty  of  the  great  maj  ority  of  men.  So 
it  is  with  truthfulness.  There  are  three  state- 
ments which  present  the  facts  of  experience. 
First,  all  men  are  truthful  some  of  the  time.  No 
man  always  lies.  Secondly,  most  men  are  truth- 
ful most  of  the  time.  It  is  rare  that  there  is  any 
man  the  great  preponderance  of  whose  statements 
are  not  as  reliable  as  we  could  ask  them  to  be. 
Then,  thirdly,  some  men  are  truthful  all  the  time. 
There  are  a  great  many  habitually  truthful 
and  reliable  who  yet  have  some  one  or  two  points 
of  reserve,  and  you  cannot  be  perfectly  sure  of 
them  and  they  are  not  sure  of  themselves.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  true  that  the  prevailing  fact  in 
society  is  truthfulness.  David  said  in  his  haste 
that  all  men  are  liars.  We  grow  hasty  about 
that  sometimes  also,  and  perhaps  we  bear  false 
witness  against  society  in  the  sweeping  condem- 
nations we  make  of  it     The  great  mass  of  men 


PEESENT  DAY  VEEACITY  201 

love  the  truth,  honour  the  truth,  tell  the  truth. 
It  is  the  exception  either  among  men,  or  in  the 
life  of  each  man,  which  endangers  society. 

Observe  how  one  lie  shakes  confidence.  It 
shakes  your  confidence  in  a  great  institution  if 
you  know  that  under  a  strain  it  can  be  led  into  a 
falsehood.  Take  a  great  newspaper,  for  exam- 
ple. We  sometimes  say  that  we  never  believe 
anything  we  read  in  a  newspaper.  Of  course 
that  is  not  accurate.  We  all  believe  nine-tenths 
if  not  ninety  nine  one-hundredths  of  what 
we  read  in  a  newspaper.  Suppose,  however,  a 
paper  is  known  to  have  deliberately  misled  its 
readers  at  some  point  where  the  interests  of  those 
concerned  with  it  were  involved.  It  was  the  time 
of  a  great  election,  and  it  was  to  its  interest  to 
deceive  its  readers  as  to  the  news  it  was  receiving 
from  over  the  whole  country.  As  soon  as  that  is 
discovered,  all  thoughtful  men  begin  to  discount 
its  opinions.  It  has  been  caught  in  a  lie.  It  has 
been  caught  in  deceit.  Confidence  is  at  once 
shaken.  Now  the  fact  that  there  have  been  so 
many  instances  of  that  sort  in  our  experience  with 
newspapers  has  started  this  severe  talk,  which  is 
so  easy  to  take  up  and  much  of  which  is  so  un- 
justified, that  a  newspaper  cannot  be  believed. 
Every  time  one  reads  in  a  newspaper  a  thing 
which  one  knows  is  not  true,  or  finds  there  some 
maliciously  false  accent  on  an  occurrence  or  finds 
some  exaggerated  statement,  one's  confidence  in 


202       THE  NINTH  COMMANDMENT 

the  reliability  of  the  entire  paper,  and  uncon- 
sciously of  all  papers,  is  weakened. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  truth  told  under  strain 
establishes  confidence.  When  a  man  or  a  news- 
paper under  great  strain,  when  all  personal  in- 
terests are  against  it,  is  yet  found  telling  accu- 
rately and  plainly  the  truth,  men  may  call  the 
man  a  fool,  or  the  paper  suicidal,  but  all  the  same 
he  and  it  will  gain  influence.  I  do  not  know 
what  Englishmen  will  say  about  it  to-day,  but  the 
time  was  when  the  London  Times  was  the  most 
powerful  influence  in  the  British  Empire.  The 
reason  was  that  it  would  go  to  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  earth  to  run  down  the  man  who  had  mis- 
led its  editors  or  its  reporters.  If  anything  ap- 
peared in  the  London  Times  it  might  be  erroneous 
because  no  one  is  omniscient,  but  it  was  known 
to  be  absolutely  honest.  It  was  the  nearest  to 
the  truth  which  the  paper  could  reach  by  any 
means  within  its  power.  Doubtless  it  was  ex- 
ceedingly dull  and  is  still  so.  Doubtless  it  was 
very  heavy  and  not  so  widely  read  as  it  might 
have  been  if  it  had  lied  a  little  more  in  its  head- 
lines, even  while  telling  the  truth  in  its  columns. 
The  point  is  that  it  had  such  a  confidence  as  made 
it  feared  by  any  man  who  did  not  have  English 
interests  at  heart  Mr.  Gladstone  was  most  of  the 
time  on  the  other  side  of  things  from  the  Times, 
but  he  bore  testimony  over  and  over  to  the  fact 
that  he  would  receive  at  the  hands  of  the  Times 


PRESENT  DAY  VERACITY  203 

always  an  absolutely  fair  treatment,  and  that 
whatever  it  did  say  of  him  would  be  true,  though 
its  judgment  might  be  severe  upon  the  facts.  Of 
course  that  is  not  up-to-date  j  ournalism.  But  one 
sometimes  feels  that  it  has  advantages  over  the 
journalism  which  gives  you  an  issue  every  few 
hours  and  fixes  its  headlines  so  that  they  have  no 
connection  with  the  news  below. 

Thus  the  Word  of  God  and  social  life  both  lay 
stress  upon  truthfulness.  Society  would  fall  to 
pieces  if  there  were  lies  enough  to  shatter  as  there 
are  enough  to  shake  confidence.  It  would  fall  to 
pieces  if  confidence  were  not  constantly  reestab- 
lished by  the  fact  that  truth  is  told  under  such 
severe  strain,  and  that  for  the  most  part  every 
man  hears  truth  from  his  neighbour.  That  leads 
to  some  observations  regarding  types  of  falsehood 
or  untruthfulness  which  must  be  avoided.  There 
is  what  may  be  called  a  temperamental  untruth- 
fulness. Some  men  see  certain  things  entirely 
out  of  proportion.  They  exaggerate  without 
meaning  to  do  it.  It  is  ordinarily  in  the  interests 
of  egotism.  Everything  that  occurs  within  their 
experience  somehow  groups  in  their  thought 
around  themselves.  They  become  the  chief  actors 
in  every  scene.  So  they  become  habitually  false. 
But  because  they  are  temperamentally  untruthful 
their  friends  come  to  discount  everything  that 
they  say,  and  they  are  not  so  dangerous  as  the 
telling  might  indicate. 


204       THE  NINTH  COMMANDMENT 

There  is  then  what  may  be  called  an  uncon- 
scious untruthfulness.  It  grows  out  of  pride  of 
opinion,  out  of  the  lust  of  some  men  to  be  authori- 
tative on  many  points.  They  love  to  pretend  wide 
acquaintance  with  public  men,  or  with  the  events 
of  other  people's  lives.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they 
know  very  little,  but  they  have  a  great  power  of 
inference,  and  on  very  small  foundation  they  can 
build  a  large  structure  of  opinion.  A  fortnight 
ago  an  incident  came  to  my  knowledge.  There 
is  a  very  prominent  clergyman  in  this  country 
about  whom  naturally  stories  get  started.  Most 
men  who  have  heard  them  have  simply  set  them 
aside  as  liable  to  be  told  about  any  man  in  his 
peculiar  position.  But  one  man  who  loves  to  be 
authoritative  at  last  told  them,  claiming  to  have 
definite  knowledge  that  they  were  true  and  giv- 
ing the  sources  of  his  information.  It  was  in  that 
form  that  they  came  finally  to  my  friend's  ears. 
When  he  pinned  the  teller  of  the  stories  down  he 
found  he  had  no  more  information  than  any  other 
man  had.  His  supposed  sources  of  information 
were  pure  falsehood.  He  had  only  told  what 
other  men  had  told  to  him,  and  he  was  uncon- 
scious of  being  untruthful.  He  thought  he  had  a 
right  to  refer  to  the  sources  of  the  tale  which 
they  had  given.  But  it  was  only  fair  that  he 
should  be  held  to  severe  account,  and  it  is  my 
strong  impression  that  he  will  speak  more  guard- 
edly for  a  time  at  least.     There  are  some  men 


PRESENT  DAY  VERACITY  205 

who  believe  evil  gladly.  They  enjoy  an  adverse 
story.  Witness  the  eagerness  with  which  a  slan- 
der is  received.  We  do  not  mean  to  be  untruth- 
ful, but  we  have  strong  lust  for  knowing  more 
than  some  one  else  knows,  and  especially  for  being 
able  to  discount  the  opinions  of  other  people. 

Once  I  asked  a  minister  if  he  had  heard  a  cer- 
tain adverse  thing  about  another  man.  He  re- 
plied, "  No,  I  hadn't  heard  that,  but  I  heard  this 
about  him  the  other  day,"  and  he  told  me  a  per- 
fectly delightful  story  of  some  fine  trait  in  the 
man.  And  though  I  fear  the  thing  which  I  was 
enquiring  about  may  be  true,  I  cannot  find  my- 
self much  interested  in  it  because  of  the  better 
thiug  which  I  know  is  true,  and  which  goes  far  to 
offset  the  evil.  Now  such  experiences  as  that  are 
too  infrequent.  More  frequently  far  have  I  been 
speakiug  favourably  of  some  one,  only  to  have 
another  man  either  look  consciously  at  me  as 
much  as  to  say  that  he  knew  a  great  deal  of  the 
other  side,  or  else  have  him  after  a  while  say, 
u  Well,  that  is  all  right,  but  if  you  knew  him  as 
well  as  I  do  you  would  know  this  and  that  thing." 
We  take  up  part  of  the  truth  and  state  it  as 
though  it  were  all.  There  is  a  hard  word  that 
can  be  said  and  we  use  it  as  though  it  were  the 
only  word  that  could  be  said.  We  do  not  mean 
to  be  untruthful,  but  we  start  the  stories  which 
ruin  our  neighbours. 

Then  there  are  men  who  are  selfishly  and  will- 


206       THE  NINTH  COMMANDMENT 

fully  untruthf uL  A  man  never  tells  a  lie  without 
some  purpose.  The  purpose  ordinarily  is  some- 
thing connected  with  himself.  It  is  for  the  gain- 
ing of  his  own  advantage.  He  lies  about  his 
business.  He  lies  about  his  plans.  He  lies 
about  his  whereabouts.  And  every  lie  is  for  the 
sake  of  avoiding  some  consequence  of  his  own 
misdeed,  or  an  evil  which  he  fears  may  come 
upon  him,  or  to  gain  some  advantage  which  he 
thinks  he  can  gain  in  this  way  only.  The  typ- 
ical outstanding  case  in  the  New  Testament, 
which  has  become  classical,  that  of  Ananias  and 
his  wife,  comes  plainly  under  this  classification. 
Barnabas  had  sold  all  his  property  and  had  put 
all  the  money  into  the  common  fund,  and  thereby 
naturally  gained  a  great  deal  of  favour  from  the 
people.  Ananias  wanted  the  reputation  which 
Joseph  had  but  he  wanted  it  at  a  cut-rate.  He 
therefore  sold  all  his  property  also,  and  gave  it 
out  that  he  was  putting  all  of  it  in  the  common 
fund.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  had  withheld  some 
of  it.  He  had  a  perfect  right  to  do  so,  but  he 
had  no  right  to  claim  the  favour  of  the  church  on 
the  ground  of  having  done  otherwise.  He  has 
become  the  typical  liar  of  Christian  history,  be- 
cause he  did  what  is  done  every  hour  of  the  day 
in  our  own  city.  He  simply  lied  to  gain  personal 
advantage.  He  was  caught  in  the  lie  and  stricken 
for  it.  Something  falls  dead  in  every  man,  part 
of  his  finer  nature,  part  of  his  higher  life,  when 


PRESENT  DAY  VERACITY  207 

he  follows  the  example  of  Ananias.  There  are 
men  living  this  day  who  are  morally  dead  and 
decaying,  though  they  walk  upright,  because 
they  have  lied  and  God  has  stricken  them. 

So  far  we  have  dealt  with  definite  falsehood. 
It  is  quite  impossible,  however,  to  escape  the 
perennial  question,  Is  a  lie  ever  justifiable! 
Are  there  conditions  under  which  a  falsehood  be- 
comes necessary  and  right  ?  I  do  not  forget  the 
cases  which  can  be  imagined  when  I  say  that  in 
actual  life,  and  apart  from  imagined  cases,  a  lie 
admitted  to  be  a  lie  is  never  either  necessary  or 
justifiable.  I  do  not  forget  that  there  are  times 
when  we  may  differ  as  to  what  constitutes  a  lie. 
What  measure,  for  example,  of  concealment  is 
justifiable,  we  might  discuss.  When  once  we  see 
a  lie  as  a  lie,  then  on  the  ground  of  pure  morals 
and  a  safe  social  life,  it  must  be  condemned.  I 
do  not  now  enter  into  the  two  great  departments 
where  this  matter  is  most  complicated.  Either 
of  them  would  deserve  long  discussion.  First 
there  is  the  legal  department  How  far  is  a 
lawyer  justified  in  concealing  facts  which  have 
come  to  him  in  the  confidence  of  his  position  t 
How  far  is  he  justified  in  defending  from  penalty 
a  man  whom  he  knows  to  be  or  has  reason  to  be- 
lieve guilty  !  How  far  has  he  right  to  bring  evi- 
dence to  prove  a  thing  which  he  knows  is  not 
true  T  Only  this  is  it  fair  to  say  in  this  hurried 
way,  that  a  lawyer  has  no  right  to  use  his  skill 


208       THE  NINTH  COMMANDMENT 

or  learning  to  undermine  or  to  overthrow  the 
rights  of  society,  and  that  he  strikes  a  blow  at 
the  very  purpose  of  his  profession,  which  is  the 
gaining  and  defending  of  those  rights,  when  he 
becomes  party  to  the  maintaining  of  a  false- 
hood. The  other  sphere  of  wide  dispute  is  in  the 
medical  profession.  Here  is  a  patient  with  a 
hopeless  disease.  Shall  the  physician  tell  him  of 
it  or  shall  he  conceal  it  from  him  ?  Well,  we 
may  differ  about  how  much  or  how  little  he  may 
wisely  disclose,  but  whatever  he  does  disclose  we 
insist  shall  be  true.  There  may  be  a  great  deal 
of  truth  which  it  is  wise  for  him  to  retain  in  his 
own  knowledge,  which  it  may  not  be  either  right 
or  wise  for  others  to  know.  We  have  a  right, 
however,  to  insist  unqualifiedly  that  whatever 
he  does  communicate  shall  be  absolutely  truthf  id. 
In  business  life  lying  is  defended  as  sometimes 
necessary.  That  a  large  amount  of  it  occurs  is 
sadly  true.  But  it  could  never  be  conceived  of 
as  a  necessity  to  right  relations  among  men.  Let 
the  man  who  defends  his  own  lying  test  his  de- 
fence by  applying  it  to  the  man  who  lies  to  him. 
It  is  a  mere  commonplace  to  say  that  every  liar 
makes  the  road  rougher  for  other  business  men. 
No  liar  helps  commercial  life.  He  hinders  it 
He  may  think  it  is  necessary  for  his  personal 
progress.  There  stand  thousands  of  men  to  bear 
testimony  that  it  is  not  necessary.  Certainly  it 
is  the  greatest  hindrance  in  the  commercial  life 


PRESENT  DAY  VERACITY  209 

to-day.  Whether  it  is  the  misrepresentation  of 
advertising  or  the  false  label  on  goods  or  the 
direct  falsehood,  nothing  is  more  perilous  or  un- 
necessary in  commercial  life. 

So  is  falsehood  defended  sometimes  in  society. 
Are  there  not  times  when  it  is  wiser  not  to  tell 
the  truth  !  The  answer  to  that  is  most  certainly 
Yes,  because  there  are  times  when  it  is  wiser  not 
to  tell  anything.  There  are  some  men  who  hold 
all  their  knowledge  so  loosely  that  the  opening 
of  their  mouths  lets  all  of  it  out.  That  is  neither 
wise  nor  necessary.  There  are  times  when  men 
may  be  told  directly  or  indirectly  that  the  thing 
which  they  are  enquiring  about  is  none  of  their 
business.  There  are  other  ways  whereby  the 
truth  may  be  reserved.  This  much,  however, 
must  be  said  most  earnestly,  that  whatever  is 
communicated  in  society  between  man  and  man 
must  be  the  truth  so  far  as  it  is  anything,  and 
that  where  interests  are  involved  and  truth  may 
properly  be  claimed  the  whole  truth  must  then  be 
told  at  any  cost  It  all  turns  on  the  question 
whether  there  is  anything  more  important  to  so- 
ciety than  truth.  Try  to  lay  your  finger  on  the 
thing  which  is  more  important  If  in  a  given 
instance,  you  point  out  that  kindness  is  more  im- 
portant than  truth,  then  the  question  is  whether 
the  kindness  to  an  individual  which  might  be 
manifested  in  a  lie  is  not  a  greater  unkindness  to 
society  whose  foundations  are  thereby  attacked. 


210       THE  NINTH  COMMANDMENT 

The  effect  of  falsehood,  even  kindly  intended 
falsehood,  on  society  is  certainly  thoroughly  bad. 
So  you  would  discover  if  you  follow  out  any  other 
alternative  to  truth.  We  are  suffering  from  the 
decay  of  society,  at  the  top,  by  reason  of  its  con- 
ventions, and  shams,  and  make-believes.  Noth- 
ing would  be  better  for  what  we  call  "  society" 
than  to  force  its  people  for  one  whole  day  to  tell 
the  truth.  The  apostle  is  right  in  saying  that  it 
is  when  we  speak  the  truth  in  love  that  the  true 
Christian  society  grows  up.  No  one  lie  will  be 
enough  to  protect  a  friend  in  case  one  wants  to  be 
kind  to  him.  That  is  a  wise  old  saw,  that  a  lie 
has  one  leg  ;  that  is,  no  one  lie  can  ever  get  along 
alone.  It  always  takes  two  or  three  to  help  the 
one  that  was  thought  to  be  essential.  If  we  feel 
it  our  duty  to  be  untrue  at  one  point,  we  are  at 
once  led  into  a  maze,  and  we  lay  ourselves  liable 
to  the  entire  lack  of  confidence  of  our  fellows. 
If  we  think  it  justifiable  to  lie  under  some  con- 
ditions, who  shall  prove  that  we  will  not  count  it 
justifiable  under  others! 

Set  over  against  this  commandment,  "Thou 
shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neigh- 
bour," that  other  commandment,  given  double 
authority  by  the  Lord  Himself,  "  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  We  say  sometimes 
that  we  hold  our  neighbour's  life  in  our  hands. 
It  is  always  true  that  we  hold  his  character  on  the 
tips  of  our  tongues.     We  can  tell  loose  lies  or 


PRESENT  DAY  VERACITY  211 

half  truths  which  would  ruin  many  a  man  whom 
we  know.  If  we  love  him  as  ourselves,  we  will 
treasure  his  character.  We  will  seek  to  live  the 
honest  life  ourselves,  and  willingly  believe  good 
of  our  fellows  and  willingly  allow  the  evil  to  die 
as  a  story  will  die  if  it  be  not  retold.  Without  a 
tale  bearer  no  story  goes  far.  It  would  be  well 
for  society  if  each  of  us  would  count  himself  a 
crematory  of  malicious  stories,  letting  them  be 
burned  up  in  the  heat  of  our  love  for  our  neigh- 
bour. In  that  way  malicious  stories  would  soon 
cease  to  be  told.  They  would  find  no  one  to 
carry  them.  And  we  shall  come  out  into  that 
better  time  when  we  bear  only  true  testimony  of 
our  neighbours.  The  truth  hurts  no  man.  It 
may  be  adverse  to  our  neighbour,  but  it  will  be 
true  and  at  the  end  the  truth  will  be  good  for 
him,  good  for  us,  good  for  society. 


XI 

PRESENT   DAY  CONTENTMENT 
(The  Tenth  Commandment) 

Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbour's  house,  thou  shalt  not  covet 
thy  neighbour's  wife,  nor  his  manservant,  nor  his  maidservant, 
nor  his  ox,  nor  his  ass,  nor  anything  that  is  thy  neighbour's. — 
Exodus  20 :  17. 

Which  stands  like  a  final  word  before  the  au- 
dience departs, — belongs  there  also.  For  it  is  in 
some  ways  the  key  commandment.  Kept  in  the 
heart,  all  the  others  are  easier  to  keep.  Violated 
in  the  heart,  the  way  is  open  for  the  violation  of 
each  of  the  others.  That  is  literally  true.  It 
would  be  possible  to  take  each  commandment 
and  show  how  its  violation  is  made  likelier  and 
easier  by  the  violation  of  this  law.  Palpably 
that  would  appear  in  the  commandments  which 
just  precede  it.  Stealing — what  is  it  but  the 
covetous  demand  for  one's  self  of  that  which  is 
another's!  Murder — how  does  it  come,  save 
from  the  covetous  unwillingness  of  the  offender 
to  take  his  place  in  proper  relation  to  the  of- 
fended ?  False  witness — whence  does  it  issue,  save 
from  covetous  readiness  to  deny  to  the  other  his 
fair  rights  t  Wrapped  up  in  this  commandment 
lie  the  possibilities  of  the  violation  of  all  the 
others. 

212 


PKESENT  DAY  CONTENTMENT       213 

Here  is  notably  a  command  of  the  heart.  The 
decalogue  begins  with  such  a  command.  A  man 
may  walk  the  ways  of  the  religious  world,  seem- 
ing loyal  to  the  one  trne  God,  and  in  his  hidden 
heart  violate  with  every  step  the  first  command- 
ment, having  many  other  gods  before  Him  whom 
he  outwardly  and  visibly  worships.  So  may  a 
man  walk  the  ways  of  the  earth  among  his  fellow 
men,  smiling  and  serene,  and  hate  them  for  their 
superiority  to  him,  may  go  with  unruffled  coun- 
tenance, and  yet  have  the  canker  of  discontent 
and  covetousness  in  his  heart.  If  I  lift  my  hand 
to  strike  you  to  your  death,  all  men  shall  know 
it,  but  who  shall  know  if  I  am  hot  and  restless 
against  you  for  your  superiority  to  me,  who  shall 
know  how  I  long  to  reach  to  your  height  and 
drag  you  down  that  I  may  take  your  place,  who 
shall  know  if  I  be  not  eaten  out  with  covetous- 
ness? So  subtle  is  the  commandment.  Its  vio- 
lation begins  in  the  heart  and  remains  there.  If 
it  works  out  into  the  visible  life  immediately 
another  commandment  must  be  broken. 

Observe  the  wording  itself.  Here  is  the  list  of 
things  which  distinguish  a  man — his  house,  his 
wife,  his  servants,  his  beasts  of  burden,  his  pos- 
sessions. Each  marks  some  distinguishing  fact 
in  his  life.  In  the  word  regarding  his  wife  there 
is  the  whole  dispute  about  social  standing — a 
dispute  which  has  so  disgraced  our  modern  life, 
a  dispute  which   underlies   in   large   part  our 


214       THE  TENTH  COMMANDMENT 

shameful  divorce  crimes.  In  the  word  regarding 
his  house,  there  lies  the  dispute  of  modern  life 
regarding  external  appearances.  In  each  of  the 
others  is  some  hint  of  our  present  life  of  unrest 
and  discontent.  NIt  is  striking  that  when  the 
people  came  to  the  forerunner  of  Jesus  and  asked 
what  they  should  do  to  prepare  themselves  for 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  answer  to  one  whole 
group  was  that  they  should  be  content  with  such 
things  as  they  have/  It  is  a  word  needed  quite 
as  truly  in  our  day.  The  Kingdom  of  God  will 
not  come  in  the  unrest  and  nervous  antagonism 
of  the  present  day.  So  long  as  class  is  jealous  of 
class,  so  long  as  man  hates  man  for  his  risiug 
above  himself,  the  Kingdom  must  wait/  It  is 
fair  question  whether  the  power  of  having  one 
commandment  fully  kept  would  not  accomplish 
more  in  securing  the  observance  of  this  than  of 
any  other  one. 

The  sin  forbidden  is  itself  a  biassing  one.  The 
covetous  man  never  sees  quite  straight,  never 
quite  understands  himself  or  his  neighbour.  A 
flood  of  light  is  thrown  upon  the  situation  in 
which  Jesus  was  found  when  it  is  remarked  that 
the  Pharisees  opposing  Him  were  at  heart  covet- 
ous, money  lovers.  The  narrowing  of  eye  to  see 
the  marks  on  the  coins  had  unfitted  them  for  that 
large  vision  which  would  enable  them  to  under- 
stand a  life  like  Christ's.  He  demanded  too  wide 
an  angle  for  their  vision.     And  as  they  did  not 


PBESENT  DAY  CONTENTMENT       215 

understand  Him  so  they  could  not  understand 
themselves.  They  were  honest,  these  Pharisees, 
as  honest  with  Jesus  as  men  inherently  dishonest 
could  be.  Their  very  covetousness  and  miserli- 
ness had  given  them  that  twist  of  vision  which 
set  them  at  a  wrong  angle  themselves,  and  made 
any  true  knowledge  of  Him  impossible.  Such 
men  there  are  still,  men  who  sneer  at  generosity, 
men  who  have  no  power  remaining  to  understand 
large-hearteduess.  In  a  group  of  men  attention 
was  called  to  the  phenomenon,  rather  remarkable 
for  us  laymen,  that  business  of  a  certain  class 
tends  to  come  together  in  a  city,  one  whole  street 
devoting  itself  to  linen  goods,  another  to  clothing, 
another  to  this  or  that  Such  houses  tend  to 
concentrate  in  a  locality.  The  group  discussed 
why  it  should  be  so,  themselves  men  in  the  lines 
of  business  involved.  One  suggested  that  it  was 
because  thus  they  could  be  of  help  to  each  other, 
one  firm  supplying  the  lacks  of  another,  one 
house  aiding  in  filling  the  orders  of  another,  and 
making  possible  a  cooperation  which  would  be 
helpful.  There  was  little  short  of  a  sneer  from 
the  others  in  the  group.  To  them  the  case  was 
simple ;  it  was  that  thus  a  customer  seeking  one 
store  might  find  his  way  into  another,  and  the 
second  win  his  custom  from  the  first ;  it  was  be- 
cause one  house  might  lack  supply  for  a  cus- 
tomer, who  would  seek  it  in  another  house,  and 
might  thereby  be  drawn  away  from  the  first.    At 


216       THE  TENTH  COMMANDMENT 

least  one  hearer  looked  on  and  heard  the  dis- 
cussion with  keen  interest.  A  mere  tyro  in  the 
reading  of  faces  might  have  known  beforehand 
what  would  be  the  answer  of  each.  In  the  keen 
serpent  eyes  of  the  second  group  of  men  there 
was  that  cunning  which  made  it  impossible  to 
understand  the  largeness  of  purpose  of  those  who 
held  the  former  view.  They  were  again  Phari- 
sees, money  lovers,  trade  seekers,  who  were  cov- 
etous and  would  ruin  another  for  their  own  ad- 
vancement. No  wonder  they  could  not  under- 
stand the  larger  purposes  which  appeared  for  a 
moment  before  them.  No  more  do  they  under- 
stand themselves.  They  count  themselves  normal 
types  of  men.  Eaten  out  at  heart  with  covetous- 
ness,  they  count  it  sure  that  all  men  are  like 
themselves,  hollow-hearted,  self-seeking. 

How  binding  the  sin  is  and  how  long  it  keeps 
its  hold,  Browning  hints  in  the  poem  in  which 
he  describes  the  bishop's  ordering  of  his  tomb  at 
Saint  Praxed's.  "  Old  Gandolf  "  had  been  jeal- 
ous of  the  bishop  in  the  very  earliest  experiences 
of  their  lives.  He  had  sought  to  take  his  niche 
for  burial.  He  had  erected  his  tomb.  Now  the 
bishop  would  erect  such  a  tomb  as  would  turn  the 
eyes  of  all  men  from  "  Old  Gandolf."  It  should 
be  of  such  beauteous  stone,  so  richly  ornate,  that  as 
men  came  in  they  would  not  know  whether  "Old 
Gandolf '  had  ever  been  buried  there,  save  to 
pity  him  in  the  greatness  and  splendour  of  his 


PKESENT  DAY  CONTENTMENT       217 

rival's  tomb.  So  does  covetousness  help  men  to 
reach  across  the  grave  and  work  out  their  petty 
ill  will. 

Involved  in  the  commandment  is  the  plea  for 
neighbourliness  as  the  foundation  of  society. 
Well  if  that  neighbourliness  rises  to  the  height 
of  brotherliness,  coming  thereby  to  the  full 
Christian  plea  for  the  other  man  and  his  rights. 
Around  this  all  society  grows.  The  trail  of  the 
sin  of  covetousness  through  history  is  in  every 
case  like  the  trail  of  the  serpent  in  Paradise,  the 
trail  which  leads  straight  on  to  ruin.  Let  covet- 
ousness have  its  way  and  it  will  wreck  society,  as 
the  way  of  the  serpent  led  out  through  the  gates 
of  Paradise.  Joseph's  brethren  would  have 
hindered  the  purpose  of  God  if  they  could. 
Korah,  Dathan  and  Abirain  would  have  broken 
down  the  system  of  worship  whereby  Moses  and 
Aaron  stood  at  the  summit  if  only  they  could. 
Achan  would  have  destroyed  the  newly  organized 
nation  if  he  had  had  his  way.  Ahab  would  have 
ruined  the  kingdom,  did  indeed  strike  a  death- 
blow at  it  and  at  the  whole  system  of  law  that 
underlay  it,  when  he  lay  that  day  face  to  the  wall 
pouting  like  a  spoiled  child  over  Naboth's  un- 
willingness to  work  his  designs.  In  the  whole 
life  of  Jesus,  there  are  few  more  tragic  hours 
than  that  wherein  His  disciples  James  and  John 
revealed  their  misunderstanding  of  His  kingdom. 
They  longed  for  the  highest  places  themselves. 


218       THE  TENTH  COMMANDMENT 

We  may  not  well  spend  all  our  strength  of  con-, 
demnation  upon  them.  We  may  well  remember 
also  that  the  protest  of  the  other  disciples  against 
them  was  not  a  protest  of  meekness,  but  the  feel- 
ing that  there  was  no  more  reason  why  they 
should  have  the  high  place  than  these  others.  It 
would  have  relieved  the  tragedy  if  the  other  dis- 
ciples had  quietly  withdrawn  from  any  contest. 
Rather,  they  follow  behind  their  Master,  whose 
face  is  set  towards  Jerusalem  and  the  Cross,  con- 
tending who  shall  be  greatest  in  the  kingdom. 
Each  has  its  own  little  claim  which  he  sets  up. 
Neither  can  brook  the  claim  of  the  other  to  the 
high  place.  It  is  a  tragedy,  so  far  have  they 
missed  the  purpose  of  their  Master.  It  is  the 
nearest  to  a  break  in  the  newly  formed  church 
that  occurred.  So,  in  the  early  days  of  the 
growing  church,  when  Barnabas  the  just  has 
lavished  himself  and  all  his  possessions  upon  the 
struggling  community  and  has  won  from  them  the 
favour  which  such  an  act  requires,  Ananias  looks 
on  with  covetous  eyes,  seeks  the  same  high  place, 
seeks  it  that  Barnabas  may  not  stand  alone  in  it, 
but  seeks  it  without  full  cost  to  himself,  would 
climb  to  Barnabas'  height  without  Barnabas' 
struggle.  Time  fails  to  follow  the  history.  Only 
this  is  sure,  that  discontent,  readiness  to  injure  the 
other  for  one's  own  sake,  desire  to  have  for  one's 
self  what  is  another's  is  a  trail  of  ruin  through 
the  history  of  the  church  and  of  the  world. 


PRESENT  DAY  CONTENTMENT       219 

Here  is  no  blow  at  honest  ambition  to  advance. 
After  all  has  been  said  that  can  be  thought  of 
ambition  as  a  curse,  after  Napoleon  has  walked 
the  stage  to  reveal  to  us  the  shame  and  pity  of  it, 
there  yet  remains  word  to  be  said  of  the  God-sent 
blessing  of  ambition,  of  desire  for  success.  There 
would  still  be  the  figure  of  the  Premier  of  England 
in  his  schooldays,  struggling  with  his  mathe- 
matics, and  vowing  that  he  would  yet  become 
master  of  its  intricacies,  and  reaching  finally  the 
goal  where  he  could  talk  his  budget  with  an  elo- 
quence which  no  other  man  has  equalled  in 
British  history.  Ambition — men  are  ruined 
without  it  quite  as  truly  as  by  means  of  it  Lives 
of  great  men  are  meant  to  remind  us  that  we  may 
make  our  lives  sublime.  Some  things  are  written 
in  history,  and  also  iu  personal  life,  for  our  ex- 
ample, to  arouse  in  us  an  overpowering  ambi- 
tion that  we  may  become  what  other  men  have 
become.  The  vision  of  greatness  and  strength 
ought  to  make  our  own  littleness  and  weakness 
less  joyous  to  us,  ought  to  inspire  us  to  increasing 
greatness  and  strength  ourselves.  All  this  is 
vastly  different  from  the  sin  of  the  law.  As  I 
see  my  fellow  yonder  on  the  heights  which  he  has 
attained,  while  I  am  still  below,  what  shall  be  my 
feeling!  By  the  light  on  his  face,  I  can  tell 
that  his  vision  is  wider  than  mine.  Would  I 
snatch  him  down  that  I  might  have  the  height 
which  he  occupies  t    Then  I  am  covetous  and  a 


220       THE  TENTH  COMMANDMENT 

sinner  against  my  God  and  my  race.  Would  I 
stand  beside  him,  sharing  his  vision,  strengthen- 
ing him  in  his  vision,  aiding  him  perhaps  to 
higher  place  because  I  stand  where  he  has  stood  t 
As  I  climb,  would  I  reach  down  and  lift  the 
lower  man  up  ?  Then  I  am  brother  to  my  race 
and  servant  to  my  God.  Of  all  the  poems  of 
Matthew  Arnold,  I  doubt  if  one  is  finer  than  that 
which  he  has  called  "  Rugby  Chapel,"  in  which 
he  meditates  upon  his  great  father.  He  describes 
him  as  one  who  was  climbing  the  mountainside 
to  reach  the  summit  with  its  glorious  outlook. 
He  has  gone  by  perilous  ways,  many  times  has 
barely  escaped  the  avalanche.  He  has  walked 
with  careful  step  along  the  edge  of  many  a  preci- 
pice. He  has  clambered  over  rough  boulders, 
walking  softly  lest  the  tottering  stone  be  started 
by  his  step,  and  he  has  reached  the  summit. 
There  is  a  glad  welcome  waiting  him  from  others 
who  have  reached  the  summit  before  him.  But 
he  has  not  come  alone.  As  he  has  climbed  the 
weary  way,  he  has  found  many  a  weaker  one  who 
could  not  clamber  over  the  boulders  save  by  his 
help,  who  would  have  been  swept  away  by  the 
avalanche  if  he  had  not  snatched  them  back,  who 
would  have  fallen  from  the  dizzy  precipice  had 
not  his  guiding  hand  given  new  vision.  He 
reaches  the  summit,  but  not  alone.  He  gains  the 
height,  but  others  rest  with  him  as  he  rests.  Is 
not  this  ambition?  aye,  verily,  ambition  which 


PRESENT  DAY  CONTENTMENT      221 

starts  a  man  Godward,  but  which  drags  no  man 
down  that  he  may  rise,  which  will  not  make  of 
other  men  stepping-stones  for  him  to  climb. 
Another  sin  it  is  which  this  commandment  seeks 
to  kill,  the  sin  which  blots  and  stains  our  present 
life,  commercial  and  social. 

Sometimes  it  appears  in  the  matter  of  posses- 
sions. There  is  the  unrest  of  business  life.  It  is 
not  what  we  have  that  makes  us  discontented. 
It  is  what  we  have  uot  and  another  has.  No 
niau  is  discontented  for  the  thing  which  no  one 
has  about  him.  If  no  one  had  a  marble  house, 
there  might  be  men  seeking  it,  but  no  man  would 
be  restless  and  hot  of  heart  for  lack  of  it.  If  no 
one  drove  his  fast  running  machines,  there  might 
be  men  planning  for  and  presently  owning  them, 
but  no  man  would  be  despoiling  his  employer  or 
his  trusted  friends  for  the  sake  of  owning  one. 
It  is  not  that  we  have  not  enough  ;  it  is  that  our 
neighbour  has  more,  and  we  cannot  be  content 
while  he  surpasses  us.  That  he  has  greater  pos- 
sessions and  greater  pleasure  than  we  might  well 
give  us  joy.  Bather  it  gives  us  pain,  and  we 
strike  out  in  a  hot  race  to  overcome  him  and  de- 
feat him  if  may  be.  We  have  enough  until  he 
appears  with  more.  So  we  reach  out  to  ruin  him 
in  business  lines.  The  moral  life  of  the  people 
has  protested  against  the  ethics  of  much  modern 
business.  They  have  called  it  "  cutting  of 
throats,"  "throttling  of  trade,"  and  they  are 


222       THE  TENTH  COMMANDMENT 

right  Great  industries  have  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  a  few  merciless  men  who  have  had 
superb  chance  to  build  up  a  great  and  general 
prosperity,  but  who  were  not  willing  that  another 
should  continue  to  prosper  while  they  might  per- 
haps gain  his  business  and  his  prosperity  for 
themselves.  They  have  demanded  that  other 
men  become  subordinate  to  them,  that  other  men 
take  second  place  to  their  enterprise;  so  they 
have  risen  to  their  heights  on  the  wrecks  of  other 
men.  Their  business  has  come  to  its  strength  by 
the  ruin  of  other  business.  It  is  the  blot  and 
shame  of  our  commercial  system — covetousness. 

Sometimes  it  appears  in  the  matter  of  standing 
among  men,  what  we  know  as  success  in  any 
chosen  line.  Perhaps  its  shame  is  keenest  here. 
There  are  men  even  preaching  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ  who  cannot  bear  to  be  surpassed  by 
other  men.  Let  a  man  come  to  some  fame  or 
popularity,  let  the  crowds  follow  him,  let  his 
name  appear  in  the  papers,  and  there  are  men 
who  are  ready  to  sneer  quietly,  and  to  pass  their 
innuendos  regarding  him,  declaring  him  a  mounte- 
bank or  a  caterer  to  public  follies,  anything  save 
that  he  has  a  secret  of  power  which  they  have 
not  themselves.  No  man  in  the  church  or  state 
makes  great  success  that  there  are  not  men  ready 
to  point  out  the  defects  in  his  life,  and  to  make 
it  out  that  he  is  unworthy  the  place  he  has 
gained.     The    statesman    of  Washington's   day 


PRESENT  DAT  CONTENTMENT       223 

points  to  the  portrait  of  Washington  and  says, 
"That  blockhead  made  his  fortune  by  keeping 
his  mouth  shut"  Abraham  Lincoln  is  reviled 
and  contemned  by  men  in  themselves  not  worthy 
to  do  the  menial  tasks  of  his  household  because 
they  envy  him  his  place  and  power.  Spurgeon 
wins  men  by  the  thousands,  and  small-dimen- 
sioned churchmen  point  the  finger  of  scorn  at 
him,  envious,  though  they  know  it  not,  as  the 
Pharisees  of  Jesus'  day  knew  not  their  covetous- 
ness.  Much  criticism  of  the  present  day  is  viti- 
ated by  the  same  evil.  A  new  poet  appears — 
will  other  poets  open  their  arms  to  him  f  A  new 
artist  is  discovered — what  will  his  brothers  say 
of  him  f  A  new  essayist  appears — we  watch  the 
review  of  the  volume  with  keen  interest.  Will 
a  man's  brothers  recognize  him,  or  must  he  fight 
his  way  like  a  Browning,  or  a  Millet,  or  a 
Thoreaut  Aye,  it  is  a  subtle  sin,  this.  Few 
men  know  its  hold  upon  them,  but  as  we  find 
ourselves  measuring  other  men  we  discover  the 
roots  of  it  in  ourselves,  and  find  it  hard  to  be 
generous  and  fair  to  the  man  who  in  the  eyes  of 
our  fellows  surpasses  us.  We  would  fain  draw 
him  down  because  he  stands  higher  than  we.  He 
preaches  to  larger  companies  than  ourselves. 
He  is  far  more  talked  of  than  are  we.  We  will 
stain  his  name  if  we  have  a  chance.  We  will 
pour  on  him  our  contempt.  We  will  assume  a 
superiority  which  in  our  hearts  we  know  we  do 


224       THE  TENTH  COMMANDMENT 

not  deserve.  His  legal  practice  is  larger  than 
ours.  We  have  convenient  names  for  him  which 
we  can  use  with  clients.  He  has  more  patients 
in  his  medical  practice  than  have  we.  If  we 
were  charlatans,  so  might  we  have  larger  prac- 
tice. And  so  it  goes  on — to  our  increasing  shame, 
the  blot  on  our  social  system — covetousness. 

Sometimes  even  it  appears  in  the  innermost 
recesses  of  the  spiritual  life.  Men  in  the  presence 
of  God's  saints  on  earth,  whose  very  holiness  con- 
demns themselves,  find  easy  fault  with  them, 
point  out  this  defect  or  that,  in  the  effort  to  keep 
their  lives  from  appearing  so  fine  as  they  have 
appeared ;  speak  their  words  in  undertones  re- 
garding them,  that  thus  their  own  lives  may  not 
be  so  condemned.  Covetousness,  all  of  it ;  miser- 
able envy,  every  whit.  Over  against  it,  how 
splendid  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ — Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself.  For  in  this,  His 
second  commandment,  there  lies  the  secret  of 
the  cure  of  the  sin  of  covetousness,  a  cure  which 
will  lead  us  to  rejoice  in  the  advancement  of  our 
brother,  which  will  lead  us  to  reach  a  helping 
hand  to  him,  each  standing  for  the  other,  each 
glorying  in  the  prosperity  and  blessing  of  the 
other,  and  each  inspired  to  larger  endeavour  by 
the  success  vouchsafed  to  the  other. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  50  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.00  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


SEP  £4  JD3£ 

NOV   9    1939 

riFP.   13  1939 

DEC   13  1939 

MAY  12  mt 

IDaOV  4fc>. 

19'             * 

R£CD  LD 

ffV    9  * 

I  U      «-  '  ^ 


/ 


943936    g^ST 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


